Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:15):
As indicated by the last few months, we've had great
fun and great information catching up with Crime Stoppers. Victoria.
A new voice joins us for the first time. Clare Dunn,
bass player, a lovely Rachel. Thank you for your time.
S2 (00:28):
Hi, Peter. Thank you so much for having me on
the show.
S1 (00:31):
I know you are reasonably new so will be gentle
with me this time. We might go a bit tougher
next time.
S2 (00:36):
Okay, well, let's do that.
S1 (00:38):
All right. Now, this is a very, very important topic.
And I guess the topic that kind of never grows out.
I mean, it's it's people might be thinking you can
make money where, in fact, it could cost you big money.
S2 (00:49):
That's exactly right. So today I'd like to talk to
you about investment scams. And investment scams are causing Australians
a huge amount of pain. They're only becoming more frequent
and varied with the type of scams that people are
putting out there.
S1 (01:03):
What sort of forms can a scam take?
S2 (01:05):
Well, there's so many types of investment scams, but the
ones that a very popular, unsolicited context about investing cryptocurrency
scams and even fake celebrity endorsement scams, just to name
a few.
S1 (01:18):
I mean, that type of everything can really get you
in because, you know, you kind of think, oh, well,
if we want to name any names, but if so-and-so
is involved with this, then it must be okay because
they're reputable. I mean, we know them. It's it's sort
of all hunky dory. But of course, you know, it's
fake endorsements, fake endorsements.
S2 (01:36):
And, you know, when they use celebrities, it does give
it credibility. But you've got a raid on you've got
to do your research and kind of look into these
things before you make any decisions on cryptocurrency.
S1 (01:46):
I mean, you're quite right. I mean, it's kind of
over the last few years, you know, Bitcoin and all
that sort of stuff, it kind of makes the news.
And again, we think, oh, you know, it's in the news.
It must be okay.
S2 (01:57):
Cryptocurrency is just such an unregulated industry at the moment,
and scammers know this. So you're leaving yourself quite vulnerable
without doing that research.
S1 (02:07):
When you talk about unsolicited there, what do you mean
by that?
S2 (02:10):
Unsolicited, I mean, just anyone calling you, texting you, or
emailing you out of the blue. So I think many
people have experienced this already. Random text messages, emails or
messages asking you to invest in something or talking about
investing in any way, shape or form.
S1 (02:30):
So what do you do if you get a text
or I guess a text you can kind of maybe
avoided or ignore it, a phone call maybe if you,
you know, I think it might be my partner ringing all.
Why bother ringing on my son ringing? Yeah. Maybe you
want to answer the phone? What do you do if
someone like that is on the other end, not the
(02:50):
person you thought might be calling.
S2 (02:51):
Hang up straight away. So with a phone call, hang
up straight away. If it's a text message, delete them
straight away and delete those emails straight away and never
respond to them.
S1 (03:02):
Is it right that if you do, even if you
kind of go to stop them all, you know, instead
of replied saying, please don't send me this sort of stuff,
it's actually a bad thing to do because it kind
of signals signalling to the fact that, you know, someone's
received it and is responding to it. It's almost a
a counterproductive measure to take.
S2 (03:19):
Exactly. I would delete and never respond it. You know,
in March this year alone, Australians lost $82 million to
investment scams. So it just goes to show how common
these scams are occurring and how much money can be lost.
S1 (03:37):
And I mean, depending on the sort of good grace
of your bank, if you kind of realise you've made
a mistake in time, maybe the bank might refund you,
but it may not. So, you know, sort of buyer
beware in instances and if you've given the wrong person
the information that you shouldn't have, but you might be
a really big shock.
S2 (03:56):
That's exactly right. There are a few warning signs that
we can look out for with investment scams. So when
there's a promise of a low risk with a high return,
always remember that if something is too good to be true,
it probably is. And with these investment schemes, they they
usually are promising you the world and I appreciate tactics
(04:17):
are used in a lot of these instances as well.
So they're pressuring you to act now or you'll miss
out or act quickly. These sort of tactics are not
generally used in legitimate investments.
S1 (04:28):
Yeah, I mean, the old adage about if it's too
good to be true, it probably is. I mean, we've
all heard about how low interest rates, for example, out
the limit. So if someone is promising a very good return,
then the antenna must drop straight away. It must not
that something isn't quite right.
S2 (04:45):
That is exactly right. Have those warning bells ringing in
your head if anything doesn't sound right or it's not
adding up, or you think that it might sound a
bit different to what you've been hearing.
S1 (04:56):
Claire, you mentioned something like 80 plus million in March
this year. I mean, is it probably fair to assume
that there might be people that might be being fleeced
that either won't admit it or don't come forward just
out of embarrassment?
S2 (05:11):
Absolutely. I mean, it is something that. People do feel
ashamed of. So that's what the U.S. has reported on.
So this year, in just March alone, but that figure
could be much bigger.
S1 (05:23):
Sometimes or often with a mobile phone or date, even
a landline toilet paper have still got them clear. You know,
a number might come up. Is it worth reporting that
number to the authorities or is that probably part of
the whole bogus ness of the whole thing if there's
such a job?
S2 (05:39):
No, I think it's definitely worth reporting. I myself do
go on and just do a Google search of a
number if I'm a bit wary or I think that
it might be a scan. And generally speaking, it will
come up with people that have also received a call
from that number and think that it could potentially be
a scan. Alternatively, you can report it to the people
(06:02):
say Scamwatch, and they track all scams that they have
been given a report on. And they can also make
other people aware of those scams as well.
S1 (06:10):
And we talked just a minute ago about the fact
that there might be people that have sadly lost their
money and haven't come forward. I guess even if you're
in that situation, a nice sort of feeling might be that, okay,
I've been got, but maybe if I report this now,
it might be helping someone sort of tomorrow type of thing.
S2 (06:29):
Well, that's exactly right. And that's what we're doing in
Crime Stoppers. We're really trying to create awareness about investment
scams to prevent people from going down that path and
losing that money. In the first instance, the more people
we talk to about this and the more that you
know that people out in the community talk to their
friends and families, the more chance that these investment scams
(06:50):
might be prevented from happening in the first place.
S1 (06:52):
Claire Do we get kind of a bit of a
season or a run of these sort of things that
happens for a while? Then for whatever reason, they go
elsewhere and then they come back. Can that happen or
is it almost happening constantly anyway?
S2 (07:04):
I know that over COVID scandals of this nature just
increased with all the uncertainty that was going on. And,
you know, the whole atmosphere and landscape at the time
was very uncertain. So a lot of these scams were
going around, especially ones posing as the government or legitimate
bodies like that. But I think these scams are just
(07:26):
becoming more frequent and more varied, and we're not really
seeing it fluctuate in terms of it decreasing. It's steadily increasing.
S1 (07:34):
And as I said, it doesn't kind of matter with
your mobile phone or a landline phone or obviously with mobiles,
you can get those instant messages or or emails. And
even with a landline phone, you're getting calls. And I
guess the advice is pretty simple in the sense I
just hang up and just ignore.
S2 (07:52):
The scams most prevalent on a mobile phone device, whether
that's coming in from any sort of app that you
have or a phone call, text message, email, like we
mentioned earlier. So that would be the one that I
would be the most wary of.
S1 (08:06):
And sometimes the numbers, you know, are international numbers. It
might be a call from an overseas country, but but
sometimes it's like I want to say I like the
number might be a number from, you know, Sydney or
Victoria or whatever. Like it might be an eight three
or nine seven number. And you think, well that's, that's Australia.
That's kind of, you know, maybe not such a thing
to get to head up about. But you know, there's
(08:28):
obviously got clever ways that to be able to make
it appear like it's an Australian number.
S2 (08:33):
They scammers are getting very clever. Sometimes it just may
come up as a normal mobile phone number. I do
think that it could be someone calling you off a
different mobile phone and it is a scam. And so
they are getting very clever in their approaches and their tactics.
S1 (08:47):
So clear up some or maybe, you know, is retiring
or perhaps have come into an inheritance for whatever reason
that they've got some money and think, well, I would
actually like to invest it, see if I can get
a better return on the money I've got. What can
you give any advice in that sort of area? Obviously
seek out someone that's reputable.
S2 (09:04):
Absolutely. Always seek independent legal advice or advice from a
registered financial adviser.
S1 (09:11):
I mean, that isn't hard to find, is that you
can easily ask someone if they are. And often I
know not everyone has got lots of contacts, but often
if it's a family member or friend that has done
a similar thing, if you ask them what their experience was,
then that's a bit of a lead as well as.
S2 (09:29):
It is the another warning sign. If you are speaking
to someone that doesn't have a license and isn't registered,
that should be alarm bells because everyone must be registered.
Who's giving out financial advice in Australia?
S1 (09:41):
It's a very serious topic, isn't it? I mean, it's,
you know, it can be the sort of thing that
can really keep you up at night and you'd be
worrying about it for for a long time to come.
If if you do get tricked. And, you know, as
I said, maybe if you have been and you want
to sort of come out, come forward, whether it might
be helping someone as far as the future goes.
S2 (10:01):
That's right. No one wants to lose their hard earned money. And,
you know, there are things that we can do to
try and protect ourselves and to be alert to all
these scams going around. But at. The end of the day,
we do not want to fall victim to these scams.
So creating awareness is is key. And we have quite
a bit of information on this on our website at
(10:23):
Crime Stoppers. Vic, to come today, you if anyone would
like to find out any more information. All right.
S1 (10:28):
We're going around Australia on the Vision Australia Radio Network.
So that website obviously is good for Victoria. But there's
a a number that people call in any state that's
actually the same in all the states and territories, isn't it?
S2 (10:40):
That's right. That's one 800 333000.
S1 (10:43):
Pretty easy number to remember, one 800 333000. We'll put
those details up on our Facebook page. Clare, first time
we've shed a you for people who might be aware.
So what we do is we chat to you every
two months on this particular program, focal point. And then
the other month, the opposite month, we catch up with
you on the last link. So we're here once a month,
(11:04):
once every two months on a focal point, once every
two months on location link, if that's not taking place
in four people, but if they listen to us all
the time, which I should tell you, regardless of.
S2 (11:13):
When you're wrong, well, that sounds great. And I'll be
coming to you next month with another interesting topic.
S1 (11:19):
I know. Well, certainly Alexa, who we spoke to in
the past. I mean, these topics are all very relevant.
I mean, this is stuff that is happening right now,
you know, in a sense it's sad to say, but
there's probably someone receiving a text or call, literally as
we speak, that they might be trying to get some
money out of them illegally. So just give us your
contact details again. And hopefully this is just alerted people
(11:40):
that might prevent some heartache and pocket ache in the future.
S2 (11:44):
That's right. And anyone can fall victim to a scam payday.
It's not any specific age group that you might need.
When I was looking through the statistics, 25 to 35
year olds were the ones that had lost the most
amount of money. So anyone can be a victim to
a scam.
S1 (12:00):
I think all people in that age group are kind of,
you know, happening and with that sort of thing. But
I might maybe at a wake moment or yeah, if
for any reason anyway, just to hang up or ignore
and change the way that message for the day. Just
give us your contact details again. They're great.
S2 (12:16):
Yes. So our website is Crimestoppers become today you where
you can find out more information and the number is
one 800 333000.
S1 (12:25):
Claire, first time with us. Excellent job. You've set very
high standards that you realize you got to do pretty
well to match this next time.
S2 (12:33):
Oh, well, thank you, Peter. You're far too kind.
S1 (12:35):
You're just the person to do it. I can just
sense that.
S2 (12:39):
Well, I can only get better from here.
S1 (12:40):
Oh, I will. But doubt. I don't know about that.
You did very, very well, Claire. Good to catch up on.
Keep up the good work.
S2 (12:46):
Okay. Thank you, Peter.
S1 (12:47):
It's a cloud on this day. Claire is from Crimestoppers, Victoria.