NEIL MITCHELL:
Anyway, being scammed – if you’ve been scammed, well, or you’re going to be scammed, you could be one of four billion – losing one of $4 billion going out this year. Scams are hot. Got another one today. It’s a rare day I don’t get some sort of scam on my text and then you see one on your email and you think: is that a scam or not? There’s Linkt, there’s Optus and Medibank; there’s all these other scams and hackings going on. We’re losing $4 billion a year to scammers this year, they reckon – double what was lost last year. On the line, Federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones. Good morning.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good morning, good to be with you again, Neil.
MITCHELL:
Thanks for your time. What happened to the Anti-Scam Centre you were going to set up? When is that going to start?
JONES:
I made an announcement this morning, Neil, that we put money in the Budget and the work is underway to establish the National Anti-Scam Centre, so I was with the ACCC Assistant Commissioner Delia Rickard and she will be taking charge of the project, establishing it inside the ACCC because this is a consumer issue, but it’s a part of a whole of government approach –
MITCHELL:
So, sorry, when do you expect it to be working?
JONES:
We’ve got initiatives that are already underway, more to come between now and Christmas and a full-scale roll – ramp‑up I should say, Neil, next year.
MITCHELL:
So, the Anti-Scam Centre should be open, what, early next year?
JONES:
That’s correct. Good leadership inside the ACCC on it, putting together the initial stand up and the plan is over time to just continue to build its capacity. Objective? Make Australia destination of last resort for these cyber criminals and scammers because it’s just too hard to make a buck.
MITCHELL:
How hard is it to nail someone? I mean, we can alert the public and make them aware and reduce the number of scams, but it’s pretty damn near impossible, isn’t it, to charge somebody?
JONES:
Once the money has left an account, almost impossible. Not impossible. If there’s an overseas based outfit, almost impossible. If they’re a domestic based outfit, a lot easier. And there’s a mix of both. A lot of it coming in from overseas but some of it here as well. We have a lot more success tracking them down when they’re in the country. It is about cutting the stuff off at the source. You know, that’s why getting the social media platforms to take down the scam advertising that is the entry point to a lot of these operations is critical, knocking off those scam SMSs and emails, that’s also critical; and getting the banks and telcos talking to each other a lot earlier in the piece as we discovered a big hole in our laws over the Optus breach, so moving on that one as well. So right across government high priority, lots of things happening. Again, the objective: make Australia the destination of last resort for a scammer wanting to make money.
MITCHELL:
Why are we being targeted so heavily in Australia? We seem to be the destination of first resort at the moment.
JONES:
Yeah, a couple of reasons. Around the world we’re comparatively wealthy. We have mobile phones and internet accounts, and we do a lot of online transactions compared to the rest of the world, so those things all put together – “well, there’s money to be made here” is what a lot of these scammers are saying. They are targeting Australia at the moment so beware. We’re going to do our bit as a government, but consumers have got – and businesses as well by the way. This is not just consumers. Small businesses are often a target of invoice interpretation scams and data theft and the rest of it. So, everyone’s got a role.
MITCHELL:
What concerns you the most? Text, email, phone call? What’s the most worrying scam?
JONES:
All of that. I’ll tell you what: there’s one thing that really, really made me very upset when I looked at the data and the groups that were being affected over the last year – 14 per cent of them people with disabilities. So, some scumbags are out there preying on people who, frankly – when all of government policy is trying to have people with disabilities living in the community, living a normal life and some scumbags are out there saying, “well, here’s a point of vulnerability let’s try and rip them off.” The lowest of the low, so different strategies need to be deployed in that area.
MITCHELL:
So, when you’ve got the scam centre up – Anti-Scam Centre up and running, I get a scam, what do I do? I get on the phone and report it?
JONES:
Yeah, notify as quickly as possible and we’ll get some details about what’s going on there that will give us the ability to notify – basically, work out what the species of scam it is. There’s lots of different ones. Some of them are romance scams. Some of them are taking over your computer scams. Some of them are investment scams which are the biggest groups, actually. Crypto investment scams are the biggest ones. And a different strategy is going to have to be deployed in relation to each of those, and so getting the expertise of the private sector in there as well. When it’s up and running, this is what we want: we want our reps from the banks, from the telcos, from social media companies from state and federal police all in the one room saying, “right, this is happening. It’s a war room on scams. What are we going to do?”
MITCHELL:
How are you going with Optus? Are they sorted out yet? They were a bit hard to get on with initially.
JONES:
Look, I think they’ve got a lot to learn out of this process. Once the data has gone, Neil, it’s gone for good. So, the big challenge is limiting the extent of the damage once the data has been stolen, and that’s what all efforts are directed towards at the moment. And obviously closing any backdoor in their system but limiting the extent of consumer damage, which is where we’ve been working with other agencies to try to put that in place.
MITCHELL:
Thank you for your time, the Federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones.