November 13, 2022 • 16 mins
Have you been a victim of a scam or fraud? Listen to this interview Highlight where Peter catches up with with Clare Dundas from Crime Stoppers Victoria. They discuss news: tips; information about identity theft and scams awareness.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
Welcome to this podcast made possible by Vision Australia Radio.
Your community radio station visit via Radio dot org for
more information on Vision Australia Radio and our podcasts.
S2 (00:13):
Let's catch up with a very popular segment from Crime
Stoppers Victoria. We catch up with Claire Dundas on a
regular basis and Claire's with us again. Claire Levy to
catch up again.
S3 (00:22):
Lovely to catch up with you, Peter.
S2 (00:24):
Now this is very, very topical, particularly what's been in
the news in the last few weeks. Identity theft.
S3 (00:30):
That's right. It's very topical. A lot of people are
concerned with the recent cyber attacks and all the coverage
it has been in the media and it's also Scams
Awareness Week. So it's tying in very nicely and there's
a lot of information that we can get out there
to the listeners about this topic.
S2 (00:48):
It's a great case of be alert but not alarmed.
The more we know and the more on the lookout
we are, then hopefully the better prepared we are if
something should happen and hopefully to prevent anything from happening.
S3 (01:00):
That is exactly right, Peter. People do panic and they
get scared. But that's not what we should do. We
should aim ourselves with all the information and the tips
on how to protect our personal information. And we can't
we can't really stress about it. Sometimes it's out of
our control, but the things that we can do is
get all the information we can. And that's why we've
(01:21):
released a podcast as of yesterday on identity theft. And
we've got two more episodes in the Spotting a Scam
podcast series.
S2 (01:30):
Maybe we go right back to the beginning. So what
is identity theft? I mean, I guess we kind of know,
but how would you describe it?
S3 (01:36):
Yes, identity theft is where a scammer will steal your
personal information, whether it be it will be multiple forms
in most cases. So whether it is your your bank details,
your Medicare details, your my gov log in, it can
be a range of different things for personal gain. So
there's so many different implications of having your identity stolen.
(01:59):
The first one is financial, so they're stealing your personal
information to gain access into your bank accounts or your
credit cards. The next one is that they impersonate you online,
so then they use your personal information that they've gathered
because they have so many different forms of it to
open up accounts in your name, take out loans or
(02:20):
credit cards. So we're talking about really serious implications here.
And then they may even get onto your social media
accounts and impersonate you to scam your family and friends.
So again, we're talking about really serious things here.
S2 (02:35):
And very, very serious. And I mean, the financial side
of things runs it runs into millions people losing millions
of dollars with things like.
S3 (02:44):
This scam, which is reporting that Australians have lost nearly
$8 million this year so far to identity theft scams.
So we're not talking about a little bit of money.
And I read recently that in the last five years, 95%
of Australians have been served a scam in some shape
or form. Not that they have been scammed, but they've
received some form of scam, text message, emails, phone call
(03:08):
or the likes.
S2 (03:09):
So in that instance then what do we do if
we suspect something is not right with an email or text?
What should we do? Or shouldn't we?
S3 (03:17):
Yes. So the one thing that I would stress is
with any of those emails, text messages coming through, we
cannot link in the attachment or the body of the
email or text that says, Click on this link to
update your details. Please avoid them. Act with caution. Scammers
are so savvy and creative with the way that they
(03:39):
go about things now, so they will have a link
to a page that looks very legitimate. It might look
like your myGov login page. It might look like your
bank login page. And this is how they're stealing your information.
They look very legitimate. They say, we need you to
update your details. They've created a whole web page for
you to put your details in and it's all a scam.
(04:01):
So please do not click on any of those things
that you find in text messages or emails. That would
be the number one thing clear.
S2 (04:07):
Often when you're out having a meal or a coffee
or whatever, you know, you and your partner are both
on your phones. You're not talking to each other about
your phones, but that might be using the cafe's wi
fi network. Is that a safe thing to do, particularly
if you say, I think about doing your banking or
something personal, No payday.
S3 (04:25):
I would never use those free Wi-Fi services to do
any of your online shopping, online banking, anything that you
might have, any personal information, because that's a really easy
way for scammers to jump on because those wi fi
networks are not secure.
S2 (04:40):
So what do we do in an instance like that?
I guess you make sure that if you do that
private stuff, the banking stuff, etc., your time with your
own private wi fi that, you know, you've got to
you have got the password, too.
S3 (04:53):
That's exactly right. Use your own personal private wi fi.
Don't be using the free Wi-Fi. I platforms that are
out there, they're not secure. The other one, Peter, is
that we should be careful what we're sharing online. So
just because you're signing up to a website or a
different platform question, why they're asking you for all this information,
(05:14):
why do you need to give them all the things
that they're asking for? It's always good to have in
the back of your mind, especially with these recent cyber attacks,
Once a third party has your sensitive private information, then
you can't really protect it anymore. So there's a certain
place that you're signing up for need your birth date,
the year you were born. Does social media need to
(05:36):
know all these personal things about you? We should be
questioning that now.
S2 (05:40):
There's a lot of software out there. Is this worth
considering as far as making things a bit safer for us?
S3 (05:46):
That is a must. We all need to have security
software installed on our PCs, Macs, tablets, smartphones, whatever we're using.
And we also need to make sure that it's up
to date. So when you get that little notification, your antivirus,
your software needs updating, we've actually got to make sure
that we're keeping up to date with them.
S2 (06:05):
So tell us a bit more about the situation with
with the identity theft and what people can do with
it and what you can do when that happens. I mean,
you know, sometimes we're a bit embarrassed, particularly if we've
been hacked as far as they've got money out of us.
What's the what's the sort of best process to take?
I mean, forget the embarrassment. I mean, sometimes you've got
to kind of put up with that and certainly say,
(06:26):
I did something silly. I made a mistake. We should
report it as quickly as possible.
S3 (06:31):
That's right. So you're right in saying that you shouldn't
feel any shame with Australians losing nearly $8 million and
thousands and thousands of reports coming through of identity theft.
You're not alone if you have been scammed. So the
first thing you must do is call your bank and
your credit card companies and immediately notify them of fraudulent
(06:52):
activity and they can put a freeze on your accounts
and they can even try in some instances and reverse
the transaction. So that's your first point of code. You've
got to contact your financial institution. Now, the second thing
I will say on that is if you think that
you've given your personal information away or somehow a scanner
might have it, but nothing's happened yet, you can also
(07:13):
contact your bank and they can put a sort of
like a warning slash notice on your account to be
monitoring it for anything. So that's what banks have the
ability to do these days. And in the podcast that
we recorded, we spoke with the chief information officer at
Bank Vic, and he kind of went into some details
on that. So they've got a lot of things in
place to help protect their customers. So that's another tip there.
(07:36):
And then you must contact the police so you can
contact your local police station or you can go to
report cyber. And that website is cyber dot gov, dot
agu And all the information reports that they receive at
report cited do go to Victoria Police to then be investigated.
But one tip I will share is that if we're
(07:57):
not reporting to the police or report cyber and for instance,
someone's taken out a phone plan in your name and
you're trying to rectify that issue with the likes of
a telco, unless you have a formal police report, it
makes it very hard to do so. So that's another
good point to just keep in the back of your mind.
S2 (08:17):
Okay. That's another reason to make sure that you do
report it, isn't it?
S3 (08:21):
Yes, absolutely. We can also check with credit reference agencies.
We're entitled to a free credit report every 12 months. So,
you know, you may have a good credit report and
then all of a sudden you're denied credit on a
loan or you're denied a credit card. That would ring
alarm bells in your head that something's not right because
(08:41):
you shouldn't have a bad credit rating. But scammers can
cause you to have a bad credit rating. So checking
that report very frequently is another thing that we can do.
And also keep records of everything. If something's happened to you,
when you've kept the text messages or the emails or
anything that you have as evidence to help support your
(09:02):
case is definitely something that you should be holding on to.
S2 (09:05):
I'm going to assume that if a number of people
report a similar sort of thing, both the bank or
the institution and or the police kind of collide, all
this information in a patent starts to form, which maybe
helps their investigations as well.
S3 (09:19):
That's right. The I would say, very good at doing that.
That's Scamwatch and that's who are running the National Scams
Awareness Week this week. They're very good about getting in
reports and alerting people to the current scams that are
going on. We had one recently was called the High
Mum Text Message Scam and basically scammers were texting anyone
(09:41):
but just saying, Hi mom, I've lost my phone, I'm
in trouble, I need you to send me money straight away.
And lots of people were falling victim to this scam.
So they are becoming very elaborate that that platform scamwatch
they were alerting people to that scam that was going around.
So they definitely followed trends. And they try and get
the information out there to warn other people about what's happening.
S2 (10:04):
You know, people are busy and I guess you sort
of think, oh, yeah, that's possible. My my child is
probably running out of money. I'll do this. And then
then they get on with my day. And as you say,
you perhaps are doing that thinking. And that can be
a very, very, very, very costly mistake. Clare I've also
heard about people maybe getting bills, for example, about something
that purchased and I have no recollection of it. Is
(10:25):
that another bit of a telltale sign?
S3 (10:27):
That is definitely something that would alert you to your
identity being stolen. If you have a bill turn up
at your house that you have not made that purchase
or you haven't opened that account, that would definitely alert
you to the fact that someone may have used your
name and your identity to open up that account. So
you would need to be looking into that straightaway.
S2 (10:49):
So that's another reason, I guess, as you say, I mean,
it might take a little bit of time while you're
doing it, but it can save you a lot of time, heartache,
stress and money in the long term to just make
sure you arrest, you know, accounting for every transaction that
you make. And I guess, you know, in defence of
this all, in a sense, we make so many transactions
these days online and with credit cards, etc., that it's,
(11:09):
you know, it's a little bit of a job to
try and keep on top. I guess if we do
it on a kind of regular basis, maybe just sort
of basis for the workload a little bit. And as
I say, it probably puts a lot of the deposits
in the safety bank as far as being peace of
mind goes.
S3 (11:25):
That's right. We should all be checking our bank statements
and all those transactions that are going through, because what
scammers do is they put through a very small, small transaction,
say a $4 transaction on your account or your credit card,
because they're the ones that fly under the radar. They're
(11:45):
not detected as much as large as sums up. And
then that escalates. So once they get away with a
few very small transactions, they can then up the limit.
So it is a really good idea to be checking
out bank transactions and all of those transaction documents just
to make sure that nothing like that is going on.
S2 (12:04):
When you can think I bought a coffee that I
can't remember, but I'm sure that that would have been
a coffee that I bought because we could then get
yourself into trouble. Clay talked a bit more about people
accessing or sort of impersonating your social media. Tell us
a bit more about that. I'm sure many of us
would have received messages, suspicious messages from friends on something
like Facebook.
S3 (12:24):
It happens very frequently where you're messaged out of the
blue from a Facebook friend or someone that you have
on a social media account. And it's a very strange
message or it seems quite weird. So social media accounts
are getting hacked quite frequently. I guess the best thing
to do is if you are concerned about something like
even that high text message scam is call the person
(12:47):
on the number that you have fooled and take the
communication away from that text message or that messaging service
that they're using and try and get in contact with
that person with a direct number that they have because,
of course, these scammers are playing on people's vulnerabilities. If
you get a message from someone you know that you need,
you're going to act and you might not think twice
(13:08):
before acting. That's why we need to pause and call
them on a direct line that we have for them.
S2 (13:15):
So you know for sure that you become from them
or it has and therefore you take some sort of action.
Clare This is all very, very important stuff. I think
I know the answer to this next question. What about
changing passwords?
S3 (13:27):
It's so important. Peter. We need to make our passwords long, difficult,
hard to crack. I know, I know it's hard to
remember them, but even if you want to do a
line in a song, something that's very complex because there's
these programs out there that can crack our passwords that
scammers use. And this simple, but the more simple they
are and the ones that have one, two, three, four,
(13:48):
five in them, or, you know, your first name and
last name or your birthday in a very easy for
scammers to crack. So we need to be using different
passwords for all of our accounts and we need to
be updating them regularly.
S2 (14:02):
I've heard that message, Clare. I've heard that you've done
very well. Yeah, we going to the podcast. This one
was out yesterday. Tell us a bit more about that
and also the general public system.
S3 (14:10):
They absolutely can. So the podcast series is called Spotting
a Scam. We've got three episodes in the series. The
first one is on identity theft, which we've spoken about today,
which was released yesterday, and you can look out for
the following two, which will be released in the following weeks.
They're on icons, but we've also got a link on
our website, which is Crime Stoppers, because you now in
(14:33):
the podcast series, we interview two amazing experts. Detective Superintendent
Jane Walsh of the Victoria Police Cybercrime Division. She is
a wealth of knowledge and also Shane Caret, the chief
information officer at Bang Fake, and he is just right
when it comes to all the security practices they're implementing
within financial institutions. So there's a lot of information in there,
(14:56):
there's a lot of tips and go and have a listen.
All we can do is. Ourselves with knowledge on what
we can do to avoid being scammed.
S2 (15:03):
To be forewarned is to be for clear. We'll give
you details in a second now. Hopefully you'll catch up
with us in December because we have an early holiday, i.e.
we're still here in December. So you speak to us then. Well,
if you do that, we'll give you Jan off. How's that?
S3 (15:18):
Oh, well, that sounds wonderful. Peter and I will be
here in December to talk to you and everyone else.
And I'll have another interesting topic lined up that.
S2 (15:27):
Can to get in touch with you.
S3 (15:28):
So you can jump on our website Crime Stoppers dot
com today. And if you want to call us with
any information that you have because you know that we
are a reporting service, you can call our number one
800 333000. We've also got the online reporting service as well.
So if you don't want to speak to someone and
you have some information you think the Crime Stoppers would
(15:49):
like to hear about or read about, you can jump
on that website again, Crime Stoppers, because, you know.
S2 (15:55):
They're great to catch up with Sprint next.
S3 (15:57):
Month. Great to catch up with you, Peter.
S2 (15:59):
Down two staff from Crime Stoppers Victoria.
S1 (16:02):
This podcast was made possible by Vision Australia Radio visit
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Welcome to this podcast made possible by Vision Australia Radio.
Your community radio station visit via Radio dot org for
more information on Vision Australia Radio and our podcasts.
S2 (00:13):
Let's catch up with a very popular segment from Crime
Stoppers Victoria. We catch up with Claire Dundas on a
regular basis and Claire's with us again. Claire Levy to
catch up again.
S3 (00:22):
Lovely to catch up with you, Peter.
S2 (00:24):
Now this is very, very topical, particularly what's been in
the news in the last few weeks. Identity theft.
S3 (00:30):
That's right. It's very topical. A lot of people are
concerned with the recent cyber attacks and all the coverage
it has been in the media and it's also Scams
Awareness Week. So it's tying in very nicely and there's
a lot of information that we can get out there
to the listeners about this topic.
S2 (00:48):
It's a great case of be alert but not alarmed.
The more we know and the more on the lookout
we are, then hopefully the better prepared we are if
something should happen and hopefully to prevent anything from happening.
S3 (01:00):
That is exactly right, Peter. People do panic and they
get scared. But that's not what we should do. We
should aim ourselves with all the information and the tips
on how to protect our personal information. And we can't
we can't really stress about it. Sometimes it's out of
our control, but the things that we can do is
get all the information we can. And that's why we've
(01:21):
released a podcast as of yesterday on identity theft. And
we've got two more episodes in the Spotting a Scam
podcast series.
S2 (01:30):
Maybe we go right back to the beginning. So what
is identity theft? I mean, I guess we kind of know,
but how would you describe it?
S3 (01:36):
Yes, identity theft is where a scammer will steal your
personal information, whether it be it will be multiple forms
in most cases. So whether it is your your bank details,
your Medicare details, your my gov log in, it can
be a range of different things for personal gain. So
there's so many different implications of having your identity stolen.
(01:59):
The first one is financial, so they're stealing your personal
information to gain access into your bank accounts or your
credit cards. The next one is that they impersonate you online,
so then they use your personal information that they've gathered
because they have so many different forms of it to
open up accounts in your name, take out loans or
(02:20):
credit cards. So we're talking about really serious implications here.
And then they may even get onto your social media
accounts and impersonate you to scam your family and friends.
So again, we're talking about really serious things here.
S2 (02:35):
And very, very serious. And I mean, the financial side
of things runs it runs into millions people losing millions
of dollars with things like.
S3 (02:44):
This scam, which is reporting that Australians have lost nearly
$8 million this year so far to identity theft scams.
So we're not talking about a little bit of money.
And I read recently that in the last five years, 95%
of Australians have been served a scam in some shape
or form. Not that they have been scammed, but they've
received some form of scam, text message, emails, phone call
(03:08):
or the likes.
S2 (03:09):
So in that instance then what do we do if
we suspect something is not right with an email or text?
What should we do? Or shouldn't we?
S3 (03:17):
Yes. So the one thing that I would stress is
with any of those emails, text messages coming through, we
cannot link in the attachment or the body of the
email or text that says, Click on this link to
update your details. Please avoid them. Act with caution. Scammers
are so savvy and creative with the way that they
(03:39):
go about things now, so they will have a link
to a page that looks very legitimate. It might look
like your myGov login page. It might look like your
bank login page. And this is how they're stealing your information.
They look very legitimate. They say, we need you to
update your details. They've created a whole web page for
you to put your details in and it's all a scam.
(04:01):
So please do not click on any of those things
that you find in text messages or emails. That would
be the number one thing clear.
S2 (04:07):
Often when you're out having a meal or a coffee
or whatever, you know, you and your partner are both
on your phones. You're not talking to each other about
your phones, but that might be using the cafe's wi
fi network. Is that a safe thing to do, particularly
if you say, I think about doing your banking or
something personal, No payday.
S3 (04:25):
I would never use those free Wi-Fi services to do
any of your online shopping, online banking, anything that you
might have, any personal information, because that's a really easy
way for scammers to jump on because those wi fi
networks are not secure.
S2 (04:40):
So what do we do in an instance like that?
I guess you make sure that if you do that
private stuff, the banking stuff, etc., your time with your
own private wi fi that, you know, you've got to
you have got the password, too.
S3 (04:53):
That's exactly right. Use your own personal private wi fi.
Don't be using the free Wi-Fi. I platforms that are
out there, they're not secure. The other one, Peter, is
that we should be careful what we're sharing online. So
just because you're signing up to a website or a
different platform question, why they're asking you for all this information,
(05:14):
why do you need to give them all the things
that they're asking for? It's always good to have in
the back of your mind, especially with these recent cyber attacks,
Once a third party has your sensitive private information, then
you can't really protect it anymore. So there's a certain
place that you're signing up for need your birth date,
the year you were born. Does social media need to
(05:36):
know all these personal things about you? We should be
questioning that now.
S2 (05:40):
There's a lot of software out there. Is this worth
considering as far as making things a bit safer for us?
S3 (05:46):
That is a must. We all need to have security
software installed on our PCs, Macs, tablets, smartphones, whatever we're using.
And we also need to make sure that it's up
to date. So when you get that little notification, your antivirus,
your software needs updating, we've actually got to make sure
that we're keeping up to date with them.
S2 (06:05):
So tell us a bit more about the situation with
with the identity theft and what people can do with
it and what you can do when that happens. I mean,
you know, sometimes we're a bit embarrassed, particularly if we've
been hacked as far as they've got money out of us.
What's the what's the sort of best process to take?
I mean, forget the embarrassment. I mean, sometimes you've got
to kind of put up with that and certainly say,
(06:26):
I did something silly. I made a mistake. We should
report it as quickly as possible.
S3 (06:31):
That's right. So you're right in saying that you shouldn't
feel any shame with Australians losing nearly $8 million and
thousands and thousands of reports coming through of identity theft.
You're not alone if you have been scammed. So the
first thing you must do is call your bank and
your credit card companies and immediately notify them of fraudulent
(06:52):
activity and they can put a freeze on your accounts
and they can even try in some instances and reverse
the transaction. So that's your first point of code. You've
got to contact your financial institution. Now, the second thing
I will say on that is if you think that
you've given your personal information away or somehow a scanner
might have it, but nothing's happened yet, you can also
(07:13):
contact your bank and they can put a sort of
like a warning slash notice on your account to be
monitoring it for anything. So that's what banks have the
ability to do these days. And in the podcast that
we recorded, we spoke with the chief information officer at
Bank Vic, and he kind of went into some details
on that. So they've got a lot of things in
place to help protect their customers. So that's another tip there.
(07:36):
And then you must contact the police so you can
contact your local police station or you can go to
report cyber. And that website is cyber dot gov, dot
agu And all the information reports that they receive at
report cited do go to Victoria Police to then be investigated.
But one tip I will share is that if we're
(07:57):
not reporting to the police or report cyber and for instance,
someone's taken out a phone plan in your name and
you're trying to rectify that issue with the likes of
a telco, unless you have a formal police report, it
makes it very hard to do so. So that's another
good point to just keep in the back of your mind.
S2 (08:17):
Okay. That's another reason to make sure that you do
report it, isn't it?
S3 (08:21):
Yes, absolutely. We can also check with credit reference agencies.
We're entitled to a free credit report every 12 months. So,
you know, you may have a good credit report and
then all of a sudden you're denied credit on a
loan or you're denied a credit card. That would ring
alarm bells in your head that something's not right because
(08:41):
you shouldn't have a bad credit rating. But scammers can
cause you to have a bad credit rating. So checking
that report very frequently is another thing that we can do.
And also keep records of everything. If something's happened to you,
when you've kept the text messages or the emails or
anything that you have as evidence to help support your
(09:02):
case is definitely something that you should be holding on to.
S2 (09:05):
I'm going to assume that if a number of people
report a similar sort of thing, both the bank or
the institution and or the police kind of collide, all
this information in a patent starts to form, which maybe
helps their investigations as well.
S3 (09:19):
That's right. The I would say, very good at doing that.
That's Scamwatch and that's who are running the National Scams
Awareness Week this week. They're very good about getting in
reports and alerting people to the current scams that are
going on. We had one recently was called the High
Mum Text Message Scam and basically scammers were texting anyone
(09:41):
but just saying, Hi mom, I've lost my phone, I'm
in trouble, I need you to send me money straight away.
And lots of people were falling victim to this scam.
So they are becoming very elaborate that that platform scamwatch
they were alerting people to that scam that was going around.
So they definitely followed trends. And they try and get
the information out there to warn other people about what's happening.
S2 (10:04):
You know, people are busy and I guess you sort
of think, oh, yeah, that's possible. My my child is
probably running out of money. I'll do this. And then
then they get on with my day. And as you say,
you perhaps are doing that thinking. And that can be
a very, very, very, very costly mistake. Clare I've also
heard about people maybe getting bills, for example, about something
that purchased and I have no recollection of it. Is
(10:25):
that another bit of a telltale sign?
S3 (10:27):
That is definitely something that would alert you to your
identity being stolen. If you have a bill turn up
at your house that you have not made that purchase
or you haven't opened that account, that would definitely alert
you to the fact that someone may have used your
name and your identity to open up that account. So
you would need to be looking into that straightaway.
S2 (10:49):
So that's another reason, I guess, as you say, I mean,
it might take a little bit of time while you're
doing it, but it can save you a lot of time, heartache,
stress and money in the long term to just make
sure you arrest, you know, accounting for every transaction that
you make. And I guess, you know, in defence of
this all, in a sense, we make so many transactions
these days online and with credit cards, etc., that it's,
(11:09):
you know, it's a little bit of a job to
try and keep on top. I guess if we do
it on a kind of regular basis, maybe just sort
of basis for the workload a little bit. And as
I say, it probably puts a lot of the deposits
in the safety bank as far as being peace of
mind goes.
S3 (11:25):
That's right. We should all be checking our bank statements
and all those transactions that are going through, because what
scammers do is they put through a very small, small transaction,
say a $4 transaction on your account or your credit card,
because they're the ones that fly under the radar. They're
(11:45):
not detected as much as large as sums up. And
then that escalates. So once they get away with a
few very small transactions, they can then up the limit.
So it is a really good idea to be checking
out bank transactions and all of those transaction documents just
to make sure that nothing like that is going on.
S2 (12:04):
When you can think I bought a coffee that I
can't remember, but I'm sure that that would have been
a coffee that I bought because we could then get
yourself into trouble. Clay talked a bit more about people
accessing or sort of impersonating your social media. Tell us
a bit more about that. I'm sure many of us
would have received messages, suspicious messages from friends on something
like Facebook.
S3 (12:24):
It happens very frequently where you're messaged out of the
blue from a Facebook friend or someone that you have
on a social media account. And it's a very strange
message or it seems quite weird. So social media accounts
are getting hacked quite frequently. I guess the best thing
to do is if you are concerned about something like
even that high text message scam is call the person
(12:47):
on the number that you have fooled and take the
communication away from that text message or that messaging service
that they're using and try and get in contact with
that person with a direct number that they have because,
of course, these scammers are playing on people's vulnerabilities. If
you get a message from someone you know that you need,
you're going to act and you might not think twice
(13:08):
before acting. That's why we need to pause and call
them on a direct line that we have for them.
S2 (13:15):
So you know for sure that you become from them
or it has and therefore you take some sort of action.
Clare This is all very, very important stuff. I think
I know the answer to this next question. What about
changing passwords?
S3 (13:27):
It's so important. Peter. We need to make our passwords long, difficult,
hard to crack. I know, I know it's hard to
remember them, but even if you want to do a
line in a song, something that's very complex because there's
these programs out there that can crack our passwords that
scammers use. And this simple, but the more simple they
are and the ones that have one, two, three, four,
(13:48):
five in them, or, you know, your first name and
last name or your birthday in a very easy for
scammers to crack. So we need to be using different
passwords for all of our accounts and we need to
be updating them regularly.
S2 (14:02):
I've heard that message, Clare. I've heard that you've done
very well. Yeah, we going to the podcast. This one
was out yesterday. Tell us a bit more about that
and also the general public system.
S3 (14:10):
They absolutely can. So the podcast series is called Spotting
a Scam. We've got three episodes in the series. The
first one is on identity theft, which we've spoken about today,
which was released yesterday, and you can look out for
the following two, which will be released in the following weeks.
They're on icons, but we've also got a link on
our website, which is Crime Stoppers, because you now in
(14:33):
the podcast series, we interview two amazing experts. Detective Superintendent
Jane Walsh of the Victoria Police Cybercrime Division. She is
a wealth of knowledge and also Shane Caret, the chief
information officer at Bang Fake, and he is just right
when it comes to all the security practices they're implementing
within financial institutions. So there's a lot of information in there,
(14:56):
there's a lot of tips and go and have a listen.
All we can do is. Ourselves with knowledge on what
we can do to avoid being scammed.
S2 (15:03):
To be forewarned is to be for clear. We'll give
you details in a second now. Hopefully you'll catch up
with us in December because we have an early holiday, i.e.
we're still here in December. So you speak to us then. Well,
if you do that, we'll give you Jan off. How's that?
S3 (15:18):
Oh, well, that sounds wonderful. Peter and I will be
here in December to talk to you and everyone else.
And I'll have another interesting topic lined up that.
S2 (15:27):
Can to get in touch with you.
S3 (15:28):
So you can jump on our website Crime Stoppers dot
com today. And if you want to call us with
any information that you have because you know that we
are a reporting service, you can call our number one
800 333000. We've also got the online reporting service as well.
So if you don't want to speak to someone and
you have some information you think the Crime Stoppers would
(15:49):
like to hear about or read about, you can jump
on that website again, Crime Stoppers, because, you know.
S2 (15:55):
They're great to catch up with Sprint next.
S3 (15:57):
Month. Great to catch up with you, Peter.
S2 (15:59):
Down two staff from Crime Stoppers Victoria.
S1 (16:02):
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