LISA MARKHAM:
On ABC South East, Lisa Markham with you this morning. Do you get a lot of spam? Sometimes it feels like every other text or email is a spam on a scam message, and they're getting more convincing, don't you think, as time goes on.
It's something the Federal Government is taking very seriously. Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, has been visiting communities to raise awareness of scams and tell us how to protect ourselves from them. But today he's paying a visit to the South East, and he joins us this morning. Hi Stephen.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good morning, good to be with you.
MARKHAM:
Thanks for your time. You're doing a couple of forums today and Merimbula and in Narooma. Can you tell us what are the most common scams, do you think at the moment?
JONES:
The local MP, Kristy McBain has been keen to get me down to talk about what the Government's plan is, but also what locals can do to protect themselves, and in the local area, we've had over $2 million worth of losses to scams in this year alone, and there's about 630 cases where individuals have reported that they've been scammed.
So it's a significant issue across the country, about $3 billion worth of losses last year going up at about 80 per cent a year. So we've got to get on top of it. Part of it is what the Government's doing, but also part of it is how individuals can protect themselves and their information, and that's the sort of thing that I go through in the community sessions that I'm running with Kristy in this forum.
MARKHAM:
And what are the main points of that? How can we protect ourselves? What are the kind of scams that are around at the moment that people are getting caught with?
JONES:
The most common, or the one that people lose the most money with are investment scams. So, they get contacted by an SMS or a phone call, or they respond to a social media post, and they look at a proposed investment, whether it's a bond or a cryptocurrency investment, and looks pretty good, and it tells them that they can make extraordinary amounts of money in a short period of time. And, of course, when they pay the money, the bond certificates never arrive, and there never was any cryptocurrency, so you know, fake investment scams are the biggest category, it's about 50 per cent of losses.
The rule of thumb here, if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is. And then there's a whole heap of scams that emanate from people giving their personal information out over a phone call, through an unsolicited phone message, and typical ones that occur here are, you know, people telling them that they've got to update their virus software, or they've detected malicious activity on their Internet account, and all they need to do is let this person port into ‑ remote access into their computer. Of course they're not updating their virus software, what they're actually doing is loading a virus on the computer, and probably attempting to get access to your bank account details and all the rest of it as well.
So they're pretty smart, and you know, a couple of rules of thumb: if it's too good to be true, it probably is, don't give your information out to unsolicited calls, and don't press those bloody blue links in the spam messages that you get that take you to a website and invite you to upload information. Just don't press them. They're a scammer's paradise, and if you do those three things, we could probably knock off about 50 per cent of the losses, I reckon.
MARKHAM:
They can be pretty convincing though. Who, I guess, what's the demographic of people who are being caught by it?
JONES:
They can be pretty convincing, so a few, you know, things to look for if you are getting messages, I've already talked about the "too good to be true", if there's a typo in the message, then it's probably a fake; if there's a typo in the SMS message or a spelling mistake in the letter or the SMS message, then it's probably a fake.
You know, they're getting better. A lot of them are generated through artificial intelligence and they are getting better, but there's a few things you can look for to see through whether something's a fake, and they're the sorts of things I'll be talking about in the forums this morning.
The other thing I always talk about is, it's true that older Australians are losing more money, it's not because they're more vulnerable, it's because they've actually got more money, and the scammers know that, and that's why they target them.
MARKHAM:
We do have a question from Diana on our text line. She asks, "Would you please ask Stephen, with the ATO pushing for tax returns to be done online, is it safe, or has there been a scam through the myGov app?"
JONES:
There have been some scams. A couple of things to note on this: the ATO will never send you links and ask you to upload information on a web page. They always encourage you to go to your myGov app. Now there have been some instances of people not actually hacking into your myGov app, but actually setting up a fake myGov profile, but we're cracking on to that now, and the Tax Office is forward‑leaning into that.
MyGov is probably one of the safest ways to interact with those government, including the Tax Office, and it's been set up on that basis. I'd like to get to a point where no business was sending SMS, and no government agency was sending SMSes with a blue link in it. We're not there yet, but I'd like us to get there as a country, because that would ensure a whole heap of our communications channels are a lot safer than they are today.
MARKHAM:
So instead you would get a message from the Government, and then go into your myGov app yourself and find the information that you need? Yeah.
JONES:
That's exactly right, yeah, and what the Tax Office will do, will send you either an SMS or an email saying, "There's an updated message in your myGov account, go and check it."
MARKHAM:
I guess it would be good if everyone got on board with that, banks and everything, it would be ‑ it would probably stop a lot of scams, don't you think?
JONES:
Look, the program, the work that we've got going, and indeed we've set up a National Anti‑Scam Centre, which is about leaning into the challenge, sharing information, public awareness, going after specific types of scams like investment scams, and putting in place take‑down and interference strategies with the scammers. Often they're operating overseas by the way.
But in addition that, we're going to put in place new Codes of Practice for banks and telecommunications companies and social media platforms so that they can do their bit to improve, to keep their back yards tidy and improve the environments for their customers.
So telecommunications companies already have an obligation to filter out known malicious material that's coming through on their SMS messages. We want to uplift, and we will ‑ my colleague, Michelle Rowland, is working on a program of work to take that to a new level. We want to ensure that social media platforms are doing a better job of taking down known material that is fake and malicious and dangerous materials from the scammers, and we want to ensure banks do a better job of protecting their customers and their money as well.
MARKHAM:
Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, one of the things you're going to be talking about at the workshops today is The Little Black Book of Scams. Can you tell me about that?
JONES:
Yeah, so this is a book that the ACCC, the Competition and Consumer Commission, has produced, which gives consumers, gives citizens a ready guide on what to look out for, what not to do, and who to contact if you have been scammed, and a message for your listeners, if you have been scammed, or you feel like you've been scammed, get on to your bank as soon as possible, report it to Scamwatch, to the police, and ensure that we have a record of what's gone on, because the person who's tried to scam you is probably out there trying to scam somebody else as well, and we want to get on top of it and be able to close it down as soon as possible. We can't do that if we don't have the information.
MARKHAM:
Very true. Thanks for your time this morning, Stephen. Appreciate it. Have a good day.
JONES:
Great to be with you.
MARKHAM:
That is Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer. He is going to be hosting two forums today. So if you are in Merimbula or in Narooma, you can head along to that, those two forums and learn about spam and how to safely protect yourself against scammers.