Steve Matthews was alarmed when he received two emails in one week demanding he appear in court.

One email – claiming to be from district clerk Jerry Harper urged him to open attached documents related to the case.

The second email – received only a few days later is reportedly from court secretary Francis Drake. The wording is similar.

This sent alarm bells of in Mr Matthew’s mind.

“You have to appear in the Court on April 22,” it reads.

“You are kindly asked to prepare and bring the documents relating to the case to Court on the specified date.” 

 “I saw it and thought ‘I have no reason to be in court’,” Mr Matthews said.

Mr Matthews contacted The Courier because he was concerned many elderly or vulnerable people could fall for the scam.

“This is the most sophisticated scam I have seen,” Mr Matthews said.

Mr Matthews call comes as scam watchdog ScamWatch urges Australians not to fall for online scamming. 

Last year, 2620 Australians reported losing almost $23 million to dating and romance scams to the ACCC.

Recent Australian Payments Clearing Association showed online credit card scamming had soared.

Statistics show that card-not-present fraud – the use of account information without the physical card being involved, typically through phone, mail or Internet, and without the authority of the cardholder – increased significantly, with the number of fraudulent transactions increasing from July 2010 to June 2012 by 26 per cent.

Mr Matthews did not fall for the scam but said he had been scammed in the past. He says he receives emails extremely regularly.

“I downloaded something and then it made my computer go haywire. I had to run an anti-virus thread through it.” 

ScamWatch warns that scammers are getting increasingly sophisticated in their attempts to get money or personal details.

“Be alert and protect yourself from being scammed by following tips,” the watchdog warns. 

ScamWatch warns documents are easily faked. Some indicators of fake documents include: