May 17, 2025 • 15 mins
Scams are on the rise in Australia. And not only are they increasing in volume, they are more sophisticated than ever before, particularly in the age of artificial intelligence.
So what is being done to combat the rise of scams, and is it working?
We’ll break it all down for you in today’s podcast.
Note: This podcast is brought to you by PayID – an easy way to send money using your mobile number or email, without needing to remember bank details.
Hosts: Sam Koslowski and Billi FitzSimons
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's podcast is brought to you by pay id. Today
we're going to get into the rise of scams in Australia.
An important tool that can help combat scams is pay ID.
When sending money to a pay id, you'll be shown
the name of the person or business links to it
before you get sent. That means more peace of mind.
Your money's going to the right place already.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Sunday, the eighteenth of May. I'm
Billy fitz Simon.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm Sam Becauseloski, We're.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Back in your ears on a Sunday morning. Couldn't stay
away for two long Happy Sunday, Sam. This time we
are here to talk about scams. Now. Scams are on
the rise in Australia, and not only are they increasing
in volume, but they are also becoming more sophisticated than
ever before, particularly in the age of artificial intelligence. So
(01:03):
what is being done to combat the rise of scams
and is it working. We'll break it all down for
you in today's podcast, So.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Billy, we asked the audience on tda's Instagram what questions
they wanted us to answer about scams, but before we
get there, I'm keen to get an understanding from you
of the broader context.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Are scams actually increasing in Australia.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yes, they are in terms of how many people are
falling victim to them. And I don't think that's necessarily
surprising because I think when you think of the kind
of person who could fall victim to a scam, I
think you typically think of like someone of an older
generation who perhaps isn't as tech savvy. But I think,
like we're going to talk about their becoming much more sophisticated,
(01:51):
and I think they're targeting younger people as well.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And I feel like, because we're so much more connected
in so many different ways, there's actually just more avenues
for scams.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, yes, okay, So to give you some data. In
twenty twenty four, the ABS reports that about ten percent
of Australians aged fifteen years and over were victims of
card fraud. Now that's a little bit different to scams.
Card fraud is when someone's card is used to make
a purchase or withdraw cash without the person's permission, and
(02:21):
that statistic of ten percent is up from about nine
percent from the year before, so just in one year
it increased by one percent, which if you think about
how many people are in Australia, that's a lot of
people now. In terms of scams, the ABS also found
that there has been an increase in the number of
Australians responding to scams. So this is usually when you
are deceived into providing money or giving personal information or
(02:45):
something like that to someone with the purpose of them
stealing from you. In twenty twenty four, three point one
percent of Australians were victims of this kind of scam,
and that's up from two point five percent in the
previous year. But what I do do you want to
point out is that even though the number of victims
has increased, the amount being stolen collectively actually hasn't. But
(03:08):
we can get to that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's a really interesting statistic and it's a really interesting
kind of portrayal of how things were in twenty twenty
four because I think the other big point to make
here is that we've talked about scams a lot, more
so the fact that we're still seeing that increase in
the number of Australians who are victims to a scam
go up with so much public information out there kind
(03:30):
of makes that increase even worse.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, you're saying like there's more awareness, definitely, and more
people are kind of looking out for it, but it
is still increasing.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I know it's been a big focus of the federal government,
for example, it's really trying to make sure that there's
education around scams. Yeah, so why is there an increase then?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Basically it's because they are getting more sophisticated now. Even
at TDA, we have kind of this famous story in
the office of a time when we nearly fell victim
to a scam.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Tell the story scam because lost k comes to the
forefront here. So and it's still happening. Actually, yes, everybody
who joins TDA, and we think, we're not sure, but
we think it's them updating their LinkedIn profile to say
that they have started a new job at TDA, every
new starter gets an email from me, and the email says,
(04:21):
welcome to the company, can you do a discrete task
for me? A very interesting use of the phrase there,
And I guess they're kind of trying to capitalize on
people who might feel a bit nervous with a new
boss for the first time. New workplace, not really sure
how things work, and the ask from me is for
them to go to their near a supermarket and buy
(04:41):
a bunch of gift cards that they are then required
to take photos of and send back to me.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
But just to clarify, it's not actually you sending the email.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's my alter ego scam. No, it is not me
at all. And now we actually get in the front
fward and actually tell new starters about this happening, because
it's just it's every time.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
And it's because we are now so on top of it,
because we did have one employee actually go down the
path of nearly buying that cass She.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Was on her way to market to purchase gift cards
that she was going to send photos of to this
account that said it was me, and she was at
the point of actually asking me if it was okay
if she did that after her first pay run, like
it was really concerning it. Luckily, I really messaged her
that day to say, so glad to have you on board,
(05:30):
and she said, great to be here. By the way,
is it okay if we wait until after the pay run?
And I said, okay, we need to take a second year,
but it's quite a if you think about it's quite
a sophisticated scam.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, And I think that does tell us how these
scams are becoming more sophisticated, partly because just like that one,
they're becoming more personalized and they're becoming more targeted definitely,
so it's really tailored to kind of the specific person
that they are sending the message to.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
As still why they are becoming more sophisticated, it's actually
partly to do with artificial intelligence or AI. SAM one
of your great loves is AI. But this is definitely
one of the downside to how AI is developing and
how it's being misused. Now, there are two main ways
that AI is really changing the scam landscape. One is
(06:21):
sophistication and the other is volume. So it's making scams
more advanced, more realistic, and harder to detect, and it's
allowing offenders to reach more people than ever before. To
give you an example of the sophistication side, PwC in
the UK did a report about how AI is being
(06:41):
used by scammers to do things like create voice clones,
so something like a voice message being used, and there
were even examples of real time conversations happening, kind of
like what happened with TDA, where the scammer and the
employee were in this real time conversation and she just
had no idea that it wasn't you because there were
instant replies happening.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But it's crazy to think that there could be a world,
or there is a world now where my voice could
be used as a voice clone to call that person
and then all of a sudden, it sounds like me
given instructions.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
And that's exactly what this report found was happening. That
employees were getting voice notes from their CEO, and it's
not just one voice note, it's an ongoing conversation that
appears to be very realistic. Another possibility is creating deep
fake videos of celebrities to promote investment scams. So there
are all of these different ways where AI is really
(07:39):
infiltrating the scam landscape to make them appear so much
more realistic than they ever could before.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So it's clear that there's a lot of progress in
the spam world, and not all of it is easy
to tackle right here, right now. So I want to
turn to some of the questions that were asked by
the audience, And the first question is how do scammers
actually get my number and why are they allowed to
have it in the first place.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
So there's no one way that they can obtain your number.
There's lots of different ways. One is through data breaches,
So I feel like last year we heard a lot
of examples of different data breaches happening at major companies.
So if a company that stores your information experiences a
security breach that could expose your number, that's one way.
(08:23):
There are also data broker websites, which are companies that
literally just gather and sell personal information. Now you might
be wondering if that's legal. The answer is actually yes
if they're using public records to obtain the information, but
it is illegal if they are obtaining your private information
without your consent. And also even something like if your
(08:45):
social media accounts have your number attached to them, that's
another way that they could potentially obtain your information. And
then of course there's also the dark web, where illegal
data sharing is very common.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
We had a lot of people message saying that they
had placed them so on the do not Call register.
I've put myself on that, have you, Yeah, but I
still get spam calls sometimes I'm getting them daily. Yeah,
why is that?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So that's because they do not call. Register isn't actually
designed to stop scam calls. It actually has nothing to
do with scams. So they do not call Register, which
is a government initiative, is to stop you from receiving
calls from telemarketers. So it's a marketing thing, and that's
different obviously from scams. So telemarketing is legal, although there
are rules and regulations about when and how they can
(09:32):
call you.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And that's an example, I guess of the government trying
to step into the process and trying to facilitate unwelcome approaches,
whether it's from telemarketers or scammers or whoever. It's from
being reduced. What else can the government be doing? Can
they actually stop scams?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah, it's an interesting question. They're definitely trying. So their
main policy here is called the National Anti Scam Center.
Are you familiar with it, Sam.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
No, But it's got a I always try and work
out the acronyms.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Now, yeah, NASK doesn't quite but now the aim of NASK,
actually that's not going to it doesn't roll off the tongue.
I'm just going to say the National Anti Scam Center.
It doesn't have a nickname, that's fine, But the aim
is to improve data and information sharing between the government,
law enforcement, and the private sector to create a more
(10:25):
coordinated effort to combat scams. So, to give you a
really basic example, if a telco like Vodaphone discovers a
phone number is being used for scams, then they would
be legally obligated to share that information with other telcos
as well as the government, so that they can all
actively block that number and stop it from contacting other
(10:46):
potential victim. Interesting, So under this framework, private companies are
legally required to share the info they have about scams.
And this is quite a new thing. It only came
about in twenty twenty three, in July twenty two, so
it hasn't even been around for two years.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So it makes a lot of sense to me that
you would kind of work as a telco to understand, Hey,
that number is called three hundred and fifty people in
an hour, so that there must be something fishy going
on there. Is that program actually working and do we
have any evidence on whether it's making the impact it
was designed to have?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, it actually is working. And this goes to what
I was saying before, where the volume of scams is increasing,
but the amount being lost by Australians actually isn't so.
The latest report from the National Anti Scam Center found
that Australians lost about two billion dollars to scams in
twenty twenty four, which is absolutely a lot, but if
you compare it to twenty twenty three, that's a twenty
(11:42):
five percent decrease, which is quite substantial. In just prere
to give you a bit more context, the amount of
Australians were losing to scams peaked at about three billion
dollars in twenty twenty two, but since then and since
this law came into effect, the amount being lost has
decreased in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
There's also a really interesting story in all of that
data around the impact of the pandemic and having people
at home more, spending more time online, spending more time
near kind of phones and laptops that they think that
there's a bit of a connection between that three billion
dollar peak in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And wow COVID, Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah, okay, so what's the advice now to protect yourself
from scams? We know that there's that do not call register.
We know that there's kind of government programs that are
out there to try and reduce that. We know that
the government is thinking about it, but what can we
be doing?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
So the government actually announce a new campaign to raise
awareness about how to protect yourself against scams earlier this year. Now,
the key recommendations are to stop. That's the first kind
of recommendation to before you share any personal information, to
just stop and think about what you're doing and if
you really trust the person or the company that you
(12:57):
are providing this information to. The next is to check
which kind of goes to the same thing that you
want to know who you're dealing with and who you're
giving your card to or who you're giving your personal
information to sure And then the last one is to
protect yourself against scams by always taking actions like reporting
them if you do see them, to scam watch dot
(13:20):
gov dot au. If you have seen a scam or
you've received a message that you think looks like a scam,
you can then go to that website and report them.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And sometimes the kind of first step that a lot
of people instinctively take is by talking to their bank
or their financial provider, and that's always a good step,
and never be afraid to ask those institutions. Definitely what
you should be doing as well. But I think that
whole idea of nobody should be putting you under pressure
to immediately provide them with your financial information. That's a
(13:49):
good rule of thumb to stop, check and protect.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
No one should be putting you under pressure to complete
a discrete task.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Their tasks should not be described stop. Billy, thank you
so much for taking us through through that. Really appreciate it.
It's a really important issue. Especially there was one thing
you mentioned right at the beginning I just want to
end on, which is that scams are in twenty twenty five,
not just about older members of the population, No, and
we really need to normalize the conversations at all age
(14:15):
groups to make sure that we all keep each other safe. Billy,
thanks so much, thank you, and that's all we've got
for you on today's episode of The Daily OS. But
we're going to be back again tomorrow morning with the
Deep Dive. Until then, have a lovely end to your
weekend and we'll hit you up again tomorrow with the.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Week My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud
Arunda Bunjelung Kalgutin woman from Gadigl country. The Daily os
acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
the Gatighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
(14:50):
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So we've looked into how the landscape of scams is
chang along with the role of AI and as we
now know, scammers are getting crafty, especially in online marketplaces.
But there are still safe ways to send money when
you're buying something online, and one of those ways is PAYID.
Instead of needing somebody's BSB and account number, you just
use their mobile number or email that's linked to their
(15:19):
bank account, and before you send money, you'll be shown
the name linked to the PAYID, so you can double
check it's going to the right person. You should also
remember that PAYID will never text, email or message you directly.
They're not going to tell you to upgrade your accounts
or send money to receive money. If you get a
message like that, you've got to steer clear. That is
(15:40):
a scam. Now, if you do happen to fall for
a scam. The first step is contacting your bank as
soon as possible, and it's always worth flagging it with
friends or family so they don't fall for the same thing.
The more people know, the harder it's going to be
for these scammers to win.
Today's podcast is brought to you by pay id. Today
we're going to get into the rise of scams in Australia.
An important tool that can help combat scams is pay ID.
When sending money to a pay id, you'll be shown
the name of the person or business links to it
before you get sent. That means more peace of mind.
Your money's going to the right place already.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Sunday, the eighteenth of May. I'm
Billy fitz Simon.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm Sam Becauseloski, We're.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Back in your ears on a Sunday morning. Couldn't stay
away for two long Happy Sunday, Sam. This time we
are here to talk about scams. Now. Scams are on
the rise in Australia, and not only are they increasing
in volume, but they are also becoming more sophisticated than
ever before, particularly in the age of artificial intelligence. So
(01:03):
what is being done to combat the rise of scams
and is it working. We'll break it all down for
you in today's podcast, So.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Billy, we asked the audience on tda's Instagram what questions
they wanted us to answer about scams, but before we
get there, I'm keen to get an understanding from you
of the broader context.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Are scams actually increasing in Australia.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yes, they are in terms of how many people are
falling victim to them. And I don't think that's necessarily
surprising because I think when you think of the kind
of person who could fall victim to a scam, I
think you typically think of like someone of an older
generation who perhaps isn't as tech savvy. But I think,
like we're going to talk about their becoming much more sophisticated,
(01:51):
and I think they're targeting younger people as well.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And I feel like, because we're so much more connected
in so many different ways, there's actually just more avenues
for scams.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, yes, okay, So to give you some data. In
twenty twenty four, the ABS reports that about ten percent
of Australians aged fifteen years and over were victims of
card fraud. Now that's a little bit different to scams.
Card fraud is when someone's card is used to make
a purchase or withdraw cash without the person's permission, and
(02:21):
that statistic of ten percent is up from about nine
percent from the year before, so just in one year
it increased by one percent, which if you think about
how many people are in Australia, that's a lot of
people now. In terms of scams, the ABS also found
that there has been an increase in the number of
Australians responding to scams. So this is usually when you
are deceived into providing money or giving personal information or
(02:45):
something like that to someone with the purpose of them
stealing from you. In twenty twenty four, three point one
percent of Australians were victims of this kind of scam,
and that's up from two point five percent in the
previous year. But what I do do you want to
point out is that even though the number of victims
has increased, the amount being stolen collectively actually hasn't. But
(03:08):
we can get to that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's a really interesting statistic and it's a really interesting
kind of portrayal of how things were in twenty twenty
four because I think the other big point to make
here is that we've talked about scams a lot, more
so the fact that we're still seeing that increase in
the number of Australians who are victims to a scam
go up with so much public information out there kind
(03:30):
of makes that increase even worse.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, you're saying like there's more awareness, definitely, and more
people are kind of looking out for it, but it
is still increasing.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I know it's been a big focus of the federal government,
for example, it's really trying to make sure that there's
education around scams. Yeah, so why is there an increase then?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Basically it's because they are getting more sophisticated now. Even
at TDA, we have kind of this famous story in
the office of a time when we nearly fell victim
to a scam.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Tell the story scam because lost k comes to the
forefront here. So and it's still happening. Actually, yes, everybody
who joins TDA, and we think, we're not sure, but
we think it's them updating their LinkedIn profile to say
that they have started a new job at TDA, every
new starter gets an email from me, and the email says,
(04:21):
welcome to the company, can you do a discrete task
for me? A very interesting use of the phrase there,
And I guess they're kind of trying to capitalize on
people who might feel a bit nervous with a new
boss for the first time. New workplace, not really sure
how things work, and the ask from me is for
them to go to their near a supermarket and buy
(04:41):
a bunch of gift cards that they are then required
to take photos of and send back to me.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
But just to clarify, it's not actually you sending the email.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's my alter ego scam. No, it is not me
at all. And now we actually get in the front
fward and actually tell new starters about this happening, because
it's just it's every time.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
And it's because we are now so on top of it,
because we did have one employee actually go down the
path of nearly buying that cass She.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Was on her way to market to purchase gift cards
that she was going to send photos of to this
account that said it was me, and she was at
the point of actually asking me if it was okay
if she did that after her first pay run, like
it was really concerning it. Luckily, I really messaged her
that day to say, so glad to have you on board,
(05:30):
and she said, great to be here. By the way,
is it okay if we wait until after the pay run?
And I said, okay, we need to take a second year,
but it's quite a if you think about it's quite
a sophisticated scam.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, And I think that does tell us how these
scams are becoming more sophisticated, partly because just like that one,
they're becoming more personalized and they're becoming more targeted definitely,
so it's really tailored to kind of the specific person
that they are sending the message to.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
As still why they are becoming more sophisticated, it's actually
partly to do with artificial intelligence or AI. SAM one
of your great loves is AI. But this is definitely
one of the downside to how AI is developing and
how it's being misused. Now, there are two main ways
that AI is really changing the scam landscape. One is
(06:21):
sophistication and the other is volume. So it's making scams
more advanced, more realistic, and harder to detect, and it's
allowing offenders to reach more people than ever before. To
give you an example of the sophistication side, PwC in
the UK did a report about how AI is being
(06:41):
used by scammers to do things like create voice clones,
so something like a voice message being used, and there
were even examples of real time conversations happening, kind of
like what happened with TDA, where the scammer and the
employee were in this real time conversation and she just
had no idea that it wasn't you because there were
instant replies happening.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But it's crazy to think that there could be a world,
or there is a world now where my voice could
be used as a voice clone to call that person
and then all of a sudden, it sounds like me
given instructions.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
And that's exactly what this report found was happening. That
employees were getting voice notes from their CEO, and it's
not just one voice note, it's an ongoing conversation that
appears to be very realistic. Another possibility is creating deep
fake videos of celebrities to promote investment scams. So there
are all of these different ways where AI is really
(07:39):
infiltrating the scam landscape to make them appear so much
more realistic than they ever could before.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So it's clear that there's a lot of progress in
the spam world, and not all of it is easy
to tackle right here, right now. So I want to
turn to some of the questions that were asked by
the audience, And the first question is how do scammers
actually get my number and why are they allowed to
have it in the first place.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
So there's no one way that they can obtain your number.
There's lots of different ways. One is through data breaches,
So I feel like last year we heard a lot
of examples of different data breaches happening at major companies.
So if a company that stores your information experiences a
security breach that could expose your number, that's one way.
(08:23):
There are also data broker websites, which are companies that
literally just gather and sell personal information. Now you might
be wondering if that's legal. The answer is actually yes
if they're using public records to obtain the information, but
it is illegal if they are obtaining your private information
without your consent. And also even something like if your
(08:45):
social media accounts have your number attached to them, that's
another way that they could potentially obtain your information. And
then of course there's also the dark web, where illegal
data sharing is very common.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
We had a lot of people message saying that they
had placed them so on the do not Call register.
I've put myself on that, have you, Yeah, but I
still get spam calls sometimes I'm getting them daily. Yeah,
why is that?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So that's because they do not call. Register isn't actually
designed to stop scam calls. It actually has nothing to
do with scams. So they do not call Register, which
is a government initiative, is to stop you from receiving
calls from telemarketers. So it's a marketing thing, and that's
different obviously from scams. So telemarketing is legal, although there
are rules and regulations about when and how they can
(09:32):
call you.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And that's an example, I guess of the government trying
to step into the process and trying to facilitate unwelcome approaches,
whether it's from telemarketers or scammers or whoever. It's from
being reduced. What else can the government be doing? Can
they actually stop scams?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah, it's an interesting question. They're definitely trying. So their
main policy here is called the National Anti Scam Center.
Are you familiar with it, Sam.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
No, But it's got a I always try and work
out the acronyms.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Now, yeah, NASK doesn't quite but now the aim of NASK,
actually that's not going to it doesn't roll off the tongue.
I'm just going to say the National Anti Scam Center.
It doesn't have a nickname, that's fine, But the aim
is to improve data and information sharing between the government,
law enforcement, and the private sector to create a more
(10:25):
coordinated effort to combat scams. So, to give you a
really basic example, if a telco like Vodaphone discovers a
phone number is being used for scams, then they would
be legally obligated to share that information with other telcos
as well as the government, so that they can all
actively block that number and stop it from contacting other
(10:46):
potential victim. Interesting, So under this framework, private companies are
legally required to share the info they have about scams.
And this is quite a new thing. It only came
about in twenty twenty three, in July twenty two, so
it hasn't even been around for two years.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So it makes a lot of sense to me that
you would kind of work as a telco to understand, Hey,
that number is called three hundred and fifty people in
an hour, so that there must be something fishy going
on there. Is that program actually working and do we
have any evidence on whether it's making the impact it
was designed to have?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, it actually is working. And this goes to what
I was saying before, where the volume of scams is increasing,
but the amount being lost by Australians actually isn't so.
The latest report from the National Anti Scam Center found
that Australians lost about two billion dollars to scams in
twenty twenty four, which is absolutely a lot, but if
you compare it to twenty twenty three, that's a twenty
(11:42):
five percent decrease, which is quite substantial. In just prere
to give you a bit more context, the amount of
Australians were losing to scams peaked at about three billion
dollars in twenty twenty two, but since then and since
this law came into effect, the amount being lost has
decreased in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
There's also a really interesting story in all of that
data around the impact of the pandemic and having people
at home more, spending more time online, spending more time
near kind of phones and laptops that they think that
there's a bit of a connection between that three billion
dollar peak in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And wow COVID, Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah, okay, so what's the advice now to protect yourself
from scams? We know that there's that do not call register.
We know that there's kind of government programs that are
out there to try and reduce that. We know that
the government is thinking about it, but what can we
be doing?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
So the government actually announce a new campaign to raise
awareness about how to protect yourself against scams earlier this year. Now,
the key recommendations are to stop. That's the first kind
of recommendation to before you share any personal information, to
just stop and think about what you're doing and if
you really trust the person or the company that you
(12:57):
are providing this information to. The next is to check
which kind of goes to the same thing that you
want to know who you're dealing with and who you're
giving your card to or who you're giving your personal
information to sure And then the last one is to
protect yourself against scams by always taking actions like reporting
them if you do see them, to scam watch dot
(13:20):
gov dot au. If you have seen a scam or
you've received a message that you think looks like a scam,
you can then go to that website and report them.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And sometimes the kind of first step that a lot
of people instinctively take is by talking to their bank
or their financial provider, and that's always a good step,
and never be afraid to ask those institutions. Definitely what
you should be doing as well. But I think that
whole idea of nobody should be putting you under pressure
to immediately provide them with your financial information. That's a
(13:49):
good rule of thumb to stop, check and protect.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
No one should be putting you under pressure to complete
a discrete task.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Their tasks should not be described stop. Billy, thank you
so much for taking us through through that. Really appreciate it.
It's a really important issue. Especially there was one thing
you mentioned right at the beginning I just want to
end on, which is that scams are in twenty twenty five,
not just about older members of the population, No, and
we really need to normalize the conversations at all age
(14:15):
groups to make sure that we all keep each other safe. Billy,
thanks so much, thank you, and that's all we've got
for you on today's episode of The Daily OS. But
we're going to be back again tomorrow morning with the
Deep Dive. Until then, have a lovely end to your
weekend and we'll hit you up again tomorrow with the.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Week My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud
Arunda Bunjelung Kalgutin woman from Gadigl country. The Daily os
acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
the Gatighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
(14:50):
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So we've looked into how the landscape of scams is
chang along with the role of AI and as we
now know, scammers are getting crafty, especially in online marketplaces.
But there are still safe ways to send money when
you're buying something online, and one of those ways is PAYID.
Instead of needing somebody's BSB and account number, you just
use their mobile number or email that's linked to their
(15:19):
bank account, and before you send money, you'll be shown
the name linked to the PAYID, so you can double
check it's going to the right person. You should also
remember that PAYID will never text, email or message you directly.
They're not going to tell you to upgrade your accounts
or send money to receive money. If you get a
message like that, you've got to steer clear. That is
(15:40):
a scam. Now, if you do happen to fall for
a scam. The first step is contacting your bank as
soon as possible, and it's always worth flagging it with
friends or family so they don't fall for the same thing.
The more people know, the harder it's going to be
for these scammers to win.
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