STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:
Well, we talk quite a bit about scams on this program because they seem to be getting more and more prevalent, more and more sophisticated. And the billions of dollars that are being lost to scammers each year doesn't seem to be – well, it's not on the decline, that's for sure. However, the government's scam crackdown apparently is showing early signs of success.
Well, there was one, you might have seen a story on this, that National Anti‑Scam Centre was able to report to one consumer or alert them to an impostor bond scam prior to transferring significant funds to the scammer. Now, the consumer was going to transfer $300,000 to invest savings in a term deposit and was in the late stage of handing over the money when they received the warning and discovered the scam, which I'll tell you what is lucky. To talk to us more about this, we're joined by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones. Stephen, good morning.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good morning. Good to be with you.
CENATIEMPO:
So, how does this actually work? It's called a fusion cell, which is part of a disruption initiative. Now, that all sort of sounds like gobbledygook, but I'm sure it means something.
JONES:
It does a bit, doesn't it? Listen, we set the National Anti‑Scam Centre up in July last year. Its focus is on disruption, on education, and working with myself and the government to put in place new codes of practice, new obligations on industry, particularly telcos and banks and social media platforms to keep their consumers safe. The fusion cells are a part of the disruption activity. We're basically getting the best brains in the country who have got expertise in this stuff to come together, look at particular types of scams and say, okay, how could we prevent that happening? What are the strategies we can put in place? And the one you mentioned in your intro is work we're doing with Optus and other telecommunications companies. We've got basically a blacklist of numbers that we know are associated with criminal activity and scams. And when we see a call come in from one of those numbers to a consumer blocking the call, sending them alerts, saying, strong reason to believe that this call is involved in criminal activity, you're about to be scammed. Contact your bank. And that's what happened in the one you mentioned, $300,000 was saved.
CENATIEMPO:
But in that particular case, I mean, that's a fairly localised interception. The resources taken to try and manage that must be enormous.
JONES:
Yeah, a lot of this stuff we're automating. No one strategy that we are putting in place is going to be a silver bullet. Education, consumer awareness, using some of those basic rules. "Don't press the bloody blue links." "Something looks too good to be true, it probably is." "Don't give your private information out to unsolicited calls." All of that sort of stuff is good rules for consumers. But the stuff we're doing on the disruption effort is critical as well. And the fusion cells, basically we're moving from one type of scam to another and putting in place disruption activities. Continual game of whack‑a‑mole.
CENATIEMPO:
The sophistication level must be increasing because, as you say, a lot of those things were – in the past, if you fell for some of these scams, well, you probably deserved it because they were pretty obvious. But in the case of somebody about to transfer $300,000, that must be a fairly sophisticated scam to let it get to that level.
JONES:
Yeah, very sophisticated. Often being run by criminal gangs in other countries. The people involved are more likely to have a psychology or a computer science degree than a prison record. And that's why we've got to be putting in place sophisticated countervailing operations to help consumers protect themselves.
CENATIEMPO:
Given that a lot of these operators are happening overseas and in countries where we probably don't have a lot of sway with law enforcement locally, what options do you have to try and I guess shut down these scams as opposed to try and play that continual game of whack‑a‑mole? And we know that you identified the scammer involved in the Medibank scam, I believe it was, and there are sanctions being applied. But is that a little bit of lip service? I mean, is that going to actually affect anything?
JONES:
Everything we do will make a difference. We know through the stuff we've put into place. Look, I'm not cracking the champagne corks over this, but a 16 per cent drop in scam losses over the first quarter of the Anti‑Scam Centre's operation is material, particularly when we're looking at sums in the order of $3 billion a year. So, very pleased that new government, new approach, and we've turned the corner on that. That's good news. Do we need to continually adjust our strategies? Absolutely. The next phase. So, phase one was setting up the Anti‑Scam Centre. Phase two is the codes of practice. These will be obligations we put on key businesses within what we call the ecosystem of scam operations. And if you think of it, how do these scams get to us? They come to us through the telecommunications networks, that's telecommunications companies, or over social media platforms. And the bucket of money at the end of it is sitting in a bank somewhere. So, we have got to get those three organisations working together, new obligations upon them, to do more to prevent, detect and disrupt, and that's what the codes of practice will do. In fact, got a draft framework that was out over the last two months consulting on, submissions closed today. We'll spend the next month or so just going through that, and we'll be ready to put the next phase in place over the course of the first half of this year. A lot of work going on, but nothing is going to beat consumer awareness in this area as well.
CENATIEMPO:
Stephen, I appreciate your time this morning.
JONES:
Really good to talk. Cheers.
CENATIEMPO:
Stephen Jones is the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.