PROPERTY SETTLEMENT SCAMS: WHO'S AT RISK?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, can We're going to learn about a new type
of scam this morning, and it's not one of the
well known ones that do the rounds that we always
hear about, you know, identity theft, romance scams, all the
phishing stuff, bank stuff, email stuff, you know, we hear
about that all the time unfortunately. But property settlement scams
are something that people should be wary of and we're
going to learn about that now and say good morning

(00:22):
to a very special guest, Peter Madison, Original Grand Design's
Australia host and pexa's Scam Awareness Ambassador.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Peter. Good morning, Hi Renee.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Now, look we have some new research that has come out.
Can you tell us some of the key findings from that.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yes. Look, PEXA, which is properly Exchange Australia, has done
some research which is quite alarming. Do you know ninety
seven percent of Australians who do property transfers over the
last twelve months are not aware of the vulnerability they
have when exchanging money or doing settlements. So this is

(00:59):
a real alarming figure. Forty three million dollars was lost
last financial year of people doing property transactions here in Australia.
Now this is right up your ally, because I know
that you're really into real estate and understand how it works.
This is something that's very alarming and Australians need to
be aware of what's going on. Okay, So Peter, what

(01:19):
might a typical scam look like? Well, Ken, what happens is,
you know, when we go to settle on a property,
there's a lot going on. You're moving house, you're dealing
with the emotions of changing location, you're organizing furniture. There's
a lot of transactions, a lot of emails coming and going.
And what happens is someone's tracking your emails, what's going

(01:41):
on in your life, and they're waiting for the moment
when you have to pay the deposit or pay the
settlement funds. And so what they do is they send
you an email with one slight change in their email address,
so you know, they'll say, well, you know, quickly pay
the deposit. It's due this afternoon in this eighty thousand dollars.
And the letterhead looks the same as what you've been

(02:03):
dealing with, but the bank details will have one small
change either a hyphen or on italics in the wrong spot.
And that means when you send that money off to
them thinking it's going to your bank or to your conveyancer,
in fact going to China or Indonesia offshore or in
the state, and you lose that money forever, very very
difficult to get back. So this is the trouble is

(02:26):
errant emails, emails that come to you. And we're used
to dealing with emails, aren't we We're deal with the
emails every day of our lives. So you get kind
of drawn into the security of knowing their emails as
the way you conduct yourself. But we have to stop
and think about the way we deal with property transactions
using emails.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, for sure. And Peter, the's types of things you're
describing there. One might think they just impact, you know,
the more vulnerable groups like the elderly for example. However,
the slightest change in email, for example, like you say,
can really impact anyone like me or Cam or just
anyone absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
And you know is fact that ninety seven percent of
Austrands who do it the proper transactions can't pick it.
And you know, even the majority of those that are vulnerable,
I think they're on top of this, but they're over half.
Even though it's suspicious of an errand email, We'll still
go ahead with the transaction. So I just want to

(03:26):
get it out of the way. So yeah, you get
it done, get it out of the way. So what
we need to do to stop or be on top
of this this property scam business is three simple instructions,
three simple principles. One is you stop and you have
a look and if there's anything suspicious, to slow down
and don't rush because these scammers want you to act immediately. See,

(03:47):
you need to be very cautious and slow down and
check things. And that's the next thing you're have to check.
So when you do the property transactions, usually you're dealing
with a bank transfer and those pesky flags down the
confirmation of pay warnings, you know you get them all
the time. You want to get them out, get them
out of the way and go ahead and do the transaction.
We need we need to check those. We need to

(04:08):
stop and check that that that alert that's been given
to us by the banks. So the third principle to
stop this this business that's going on is protect, stop,
check Protect. So protect is around the idea that you
only use safe and secure digital platforms to do your transactions.

(04:30):
So something like Texa Proper in Exchange Australia has developed
a safe, safe, secure app you can download and use
and it's it's it involves trusted secure, dual authentication protocols
and this gives us and they're now doing eighty percent

(04:50):
of the transactions in Australia. You need to really use
these safe digital platforms to do these transactions. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Absolutely, Well, some very.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Good advice there, stop check protect Yes, absolutely, Nay, don't
forget it.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yep, one hundred percent. Well, Peter, some very good advice there.
Thank you so much for sharing that with us this morning.
No problem, Rene, thank you, have a good weekend. That's
our Peter Madison, Original Grand Designs, Australian host and pex's
scam Awareness Ambassador,