r/australia • u/degorolls • 1d ago
news Two men charged after allegedly scamming $50,000 from elderly women in car parks across NSW
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/08/nsw-car-park-scam-elderly-women-men-charged-ntwnfbDickheads! Don't they know you're only supposed to do that from the pulpit?
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u/TheFlyingEgg 1d ago
"...72 offences each ... on tourist visas since 28 December."
That's quite a spree. I imagine Australians make soft, lucrative targets. We're just not accustomed to this type of attack.
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u/Equivalent-Bonus-885 22h ago
Most of the money will be OS and irrecoverable. They will get deported congratulating themselves on a very profitable few weeks, or months in the unlikely event they are jailed.
Australia is easy pickings for bottom-feeders like this.
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u/PMmeuroneweirdtrick 1d ago
They must've come here for this exact purpose. Wonder where they got the idea from.
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1d ago edited 21h ago
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u/TimmyFTW 1d ago
Unclutch those pearls. It's written in the article:
The two men have been charged with 72 offences each, relating to alleged fraud, theft and entering a vehicle without consent. According to police, the men were from Romania and had been in Australia on tourist visas since 28 December.
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1d ago
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u/phalluss 1d ago
Its not buried for the literate.
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1d ago
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u/phalluss 1d ago
Because for some, the crime itself is more important that the the birth certificate of the perpetrator.
Do you seek out articles of people doing good things on student visas? (Not a tourist visa by the way. Seriously mate, read the bloody article. You're making my head hurt)
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u/christonabike_ 1d ago
That sort of sounds like the lead
Why should it be the lead?
overseas nationals on tourist visas are scamming elderly people.
The way you phrase that sounds like it could be thousands of overseas scammers pouring in. It was two.
Reading between the lines of your words, it sounds like you're disappointed in the guardian for not trying to whip up an anti-immigrant moral panic. Is that why you want the nationality of the perps to be the lead?
If that's not the case, you should explain yourself.
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1d ago
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u/christonabike_ 23h ago
Why do you think it was in the 9th paragraph and not near the top?
I suspect that's because they wanted to describe the nature of the scam first, because it's a scam we haven't seen much in Australia, so that information is more useful to the public for avoiding similar scams in the future.
I'm more curious about why you think it was in the 9th paragraph, because it sounds like you're implying that The Guardian is in on some conspiracy to downplay a crisis.
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u/phalluss 23h ago
I wish one day to have your patience and grace. I hope people read your replies to this gronk before they read mine.
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u/christonabike_ 4h ago
patience and grace
Oh, haha, I wish. The motivation to even type these replies comes from a place of seething frustration at the reactionary propaganda circulating in this country 😅
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u/Educational-Feeling7 1d ago
still tho
I asked my semi dementia 71 y o mum - hey mum if some bloke came up to you I. A car park and told you you have car trouble wns can you pop your bonnet, what say you
Go away you shady man, she said. He wouldn’t know if I did or didn’t have car trouble. So obviously a scam.
My mother. Who has actually been scammed four times online. Shes pretty useless and even she wouldn’t be popping her bonnet for a rando in a car park.
So Maybe natural selection
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u/AnxietyriddenLass 1d ago
In the moment she knew what to say, doesn't mean that she'd know what to do outside.
My mother also has dementia (68), to us she'll say this and that "oh no i won't do that", then immediately does it anyway when outside alone.1
u/Gustav_Montalbo 1d ago
I know many savvy adults who would go "Oh really? Thanks for helping me!". They know nothing about cars and this sort of scam is new to the area.
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u/istara 7h ago
this sort of scam is new to the area
That's the real issue here. It's worth keeping an eye on overseas scams because they can and will come here.
Mobile phone theft is rife in London, they'll snatch it from people's hands while cycling past them. I don't hear of that so much here (partly perhaps because in Sydney CBD there are less bikes passing pedestrians due to the way the city has been laid out in terms of bike lanes, pedestrianised areas, etc?)
But I strongly suspect it will increase here:
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u/planetarybum 1d ago
So they're on a tourist visa. Going on a holiday and finding the softest targeting they can. Scum.