Good morning everyone, and welcome back to Sugar Mamma's Fireplay, the podcast that ignites your financial journey with inspiring stories and innovative strategies. I am your host, financial planner, Canna Campbell. Now today we have a I guess you could say financial fraud, financial abuse, financial disaster if I say this with so much compassion to what you've gone through. We
are joined today with Tracy Hall. Now, I actually interviewed Tracy Hall four years ago on my YouTube channel and she shared her story about a serial con man who swindled more than seventy million dollars out of innocent, everyday people. Among those people included herself, who is actually in a relationship with him at the time, using a fake name of Max Tavita. Now, if this is sounding very familiar apart from my YouTube channel, you may have actually listened
to the podcast series Who the Hell Is Hamish? Well, Tracy Hall has just published her first book about this experience sin it's called The Last Victim, and she is here with us this morning to share her story, her insights, and her important message for every single person to protect themselves from this listening to them.
Tracy, thank you so much.
For continuity in today, Can you please share with us your experience with I guess the true name will call them Hamish McLaren, and how you became victim to his scheme.
Yeah, sure, thanks for having me.
By the way, I first met a man on a dating app in twenty sixteen, a man called Max Tavita. I swiped right and we dated for nearly eighteen months and it wasn't until he was arrested in twenty seventeen that I found out his true identity. He told me he was a chief financial officer for a family office. And we spent you know, eighteen months together in a serious relationship, taking holidays, spending weekends, going for dinners, all the things you do in a kind of a mid
forties relationship. And yeah, I woke up to some video footage of him being arrested outside of his apartment in Sydney.
On the news, wasn't it. Yeah, it was a crime Stoppers video.
It was just an online news article, and I, you know, obviously got in contact with the police and they said, yeah, his name is not Max. His name is Hamish McLaren and he's one of Austrai's most notorious common.
I have goosebumps like running through my body. Even though I know this story so well and you know, from four years ago, still like shakes me up listening to it. So I can only imagine what you're going through. Can we go to the red flags? Like, did ever something think, oh that doesn't sound right or feel right? Like was there ever something in your gut that the does stack up correctly at the time?
No, I mean he was quirky, he had quirks, for sure, but he doesn't he doesn't have quirks. Are all a bit weird, right, And I think there, you know, there's a great quote in my book which says, you know, we can only connect the dots in reverse, and it's not until we look backwards that we start to go.
Oh, yeah that was a bit weird, or yeah, that's true. They're so the dots.
You're connecting the dots in reverse, and hindsight such a beautiful thing.
And Rihanns never made a bad decision in his life.
And I think the other thing too is, you know, when you're in a relationship and you're in love, you know, and you're wearing your rose colored glasses, all the red flags are just flags. Yeah, and I do explore that a lot in detail in my book is going through the stories and the detail of how he kind of weaseled his way into my life very deeply, but taking a moment within the book to kind of pull out the red flags which I could only see in in retrospect.
Weasel is the perfect term, like he really is an absolute toxic parasite. When it could go back to how he gained your trust initially, like were there any you know, swami tactics that he used now that you've got, you know, the benefit of hindsight now to help, I guess, solidify your trust even further.
I think the thing to say about Hamish is that he was a professional, so he has never had a job other than being a con man. He's done this for decades, so he's very very good at what he does. I think in retrospect, what I know about him is that he spent a lot of time with me and doing things to gain my trust.
So he listened.
He was a phenomenal listener it so all he had to do was listen to what I say and repeat or actually create that within himself and represent back to
me for me to fall in love with him. So he was fantastic at mirroring, and most of us as humans have a similarity bias, which means, if you look like me, if you sound like me, if you like the same things as me, if your values are the same, I'm going to naturally trust and love you because you know, it's a reflection of yourself, really, And so that's what
he did. He presented himself in a way mirrored back to me, knowing that if he just did the things that I wanted or that I said I wanted in my life, that I would fall in love with him. And one hundred percent I did and I trusted him, and so they were a couple of the tactics he used. He was very slow in his approach. You know, it wasn't like he knocked on my door one day and you know I said give me all your money, pulled a fast one and left.
You know, this was an eighteen month relationship.
Well, this is like any form of abuse. He just doesn't suddenly start happening. It's you know, a push he or a shove there, a pinch or you know, saying something that's a bit mean and nasty, and it getting increasingly aggressive and psychologically damaging. It deepens over time, but to the point where you've lost yourself completely and kinda she even identify exactly.
What's going on.
Yeah, can we go back to the moment where you realize that you were actually a victim yourself, not just in a relationship wise, but also financially. What was running through your mind at the time.
I think when I first saw the video of him being arrested and knowing it was him, knowing it was my boyfriend being arrested, the first feeling was disbelief because this was a man I loved that, you know, we were building a future together. And I was watching him being arrested with you know, a headline of him swindling people out of money, and I thought there must be
a mistake. And it wasn't until I spoke to the head detective Tom Zadrevic, that, you know, I realized very quickly what I was dealing with, and I was a victim and I needed to spend some time with the police to unravel the previous eighteen months of my life. I felt, you know, I felt physically ill. I felt so betrayed. I you know, I was in disbelief that
something like this could happen to me. And I think we all think that, you know, you see these stories on the news and you know, on a current affairs shows and things like that, and you think, God, that will never happen to me.
I'm better than that.
I'm smarter, I've you know, I'm well educated, I've traveled the world, I've got a great intuition. And yet here I am. I lost my life savings to a con man. So disbelieve betrayal, deep, deep betrayal. And then I think it just went into sadness, depression, you know, and then having to realize that I had to rebuild my life. The grief, ye, the grief it was there was You're right, there's a lot of grief because I was I thought
that I'd met my match. I was building a relationship with this man, and I believe that he had the best, you know, my best interests at heart, and so I was grieving a relationship. But that that grief had hit me very very quickly. It was like it was like a death of a person, because in fact, Max Tavita never existed, so within sort of you know, it took me eighteen months to fall in love with him, but twenty four hours and I had to fall out.
Of love with him very very quickly. So that was hard.
And then I went into the very pragmatic and rational exercise of untangling the financial situation I found myself in. Dealing with the ATO, dealing with a non compliance superannuation fund which he had convinced me to set up a self managed super fund and that's where most of my money went, dealing with a potential dodgy tax return that
he had helped me with. There was so much to untangle, and at the same time, you know, making a police statement and at the same time being a single mom and working a really huge job and trying not to lose my job at the same time as it was the on income I had.
Wow, there is so much to deal with. You've got to using your brain's got to be switched on on sharp, going through the intricacies of fixing tax trends, dealing with the obviously filing very detailed reports with the police and working with them and helping them as much as you can. Plus the emotional vulnerability in going through all of that, and complicated grief and all the emotions that come with that,
and also the twists and turns. You think you're through something, and then something will happen and then you're back again. Like it's it's not like we just gradually moved through grief. We can very easily be triggered back again. I can't even imagine, like what you've gone through. But how much did you lose financially?
In total?
I lost three hundred and seventeen thousand dollars, which was my entire career supernuation and some savings and then some shares that I vested through my you know, through my career in tech marketing.
How have you rebuilt yourself emotionally from here and financially? I guess there's two questions the loading you up, Let's go with the emotional side fights.
Like how have you moved from on from this?
Like, yeah, so I'm not going to lie. It was really hard. It's seven years now. So one of the beautiful things about life is time does heal well wounds.
I think, and.
Sometimes it just takes time to look back on a situation with perspective and grace and you know, but the first few years I was so hard, you know, in sort of one part of my brain, I had this really huge job and I couldn't lose it. So going to work every day and working fourteen sixteen hour days was such a blessing.
Like how did you do that? And you're like it was a blessing. I'm like, oh my god, it was a blessing.
Because trade at work, there was that in your head. I guess it was escaping.
It was escaping, it was compartmentalizing. When I was at work, I was running a big team. I was, you know, delivering campaigns. I was delivering my KPIs. It was busy and it was full on. So I didn't have a lot of time to sit in naval gaze and really be concerned about what was happening because I was just so scared of losing my job, to be honest, because I just had to keep performing.
So that was a blessing.
I have a beautiful daughter who you know, was quite young at the time, six and a half seven years old, and I made a decision very early on that there would be no tears at the dinner table, so we didn't discuss this at home. I didn't want to worry her. I knew that I had to keep going, and you know, having someone else in your life that's a bigger than you, that needs you, helps you get out of bed every day.
So I'm so blessed that I had her.
You know, I had to make her lunch every day, get her to school, get her to activities. So that was another thing that was really helpful. And then I would just cry at nighttime, basically, and I got a lot of therapy, and I pulled my world in quite small. I didn't trust anybody. There weren't many people that knew what had happened very early on, because I think it was just so overwhelming for me. I was embarrassed, I was ashamed. I couldn't believe that this had happened to me.
I didn't know if I was going to get my money back, I didn't know.
What was going on. Happened.
No one would talk to me about who Hamish really was, and so I pulled my world in pretty small, got a lot of therapy. I ended up on antidepressants on the advice of my psychologist and my GP, because you know, crying for a few days or a few weeks is okay. But I had been crying every day for four months, and you know, someone had to say to me, that's not okay, that's not normal, it's not sustainable. So that was something I did do for a period of time
that helped me out of that. I love exercising. That such a solace for me. You know, they were just the basic things. I concentrated on my sleep because I knew that without sleep, I'm not a very great human.
Sleep is a form of medicine, it is.
And so like you know, some people self care and journal for three hours in the morning into yoga and have their beautiful cacal ceremonies, which I don't have the lottery of doing because I'm a single mum and working full time. But for me, my self care was going to bed early and saying no to the invitation or
whatever it might be. So I think there was a bunch of things that I did to get through emotionally, and then just with time and with support and with the right structures around me, I've just you know, I've built myself up. And then of course during the podcast with The Australian and Greg Barrup was incredibly healing journey for me because I found out all the things I needed to know to put the puzzle together in my
mind in the correct way. That helped me cope with with what had actually happened.
Wow, that was a very long end.
No, it was, but like it is full of so many nuggets of gold and so much wonderful advice. You know, whether you're going through just a simple breakup, or whether you're going through a financial loss or you know, a
aning type of loss. You know, I think there's so much in that, and you know, I can relate for all you're saying about, you know, needing to get professional help, you know, needing to go to get on medication, needing to go to bed early, prioritizing sleep, and bringing your circle in tight, you know, really retreating and keeping the people who are important to you close to you because they're a form of oxygen to help keep you going. Can we move on to the financial part of your journey.
I mean, it's a lot of money to lose. I mean that's a significant percentage I imagine of your wealth.
It was everything, like let's call it one hundred percent. Yeah, okay, all right. How have you recovered?
I mean we're seven years on now, Like, how have you managed to find the energy to get back on your feet again? What have you done and what has helped the most in your recovery? And have you got any of this money back?
None of the money has come back. None of the victims have received any money back. According to the police in the case, in the investigation that was done, there is no money anywhere.
So that's that.
And I guess accepting that and focusing my energy on myself and my own financial recovery has been key for me. So very early on, I went found to find itcial advisor, and that was such a hard thing for me to do, to trust someone else with money. And you know, I guess it's not lost on me that I had a really good job and I've always worked.
And you're a hard worker, I know, and you know I love work. I love what I do.
And but for me, holding onto job even through pregnancy and babies and all of that stuff is just so important for me because it allowed me, you know, even with the financial flat And then I experienced st affter Haymi. She gave me choices, and choices are important for everyone, but they're especially important for women, I think. And so I had a job and what I did was I I was recommended three financial advisors. I researched all of them, I met all three of them. I did reference texts
on all of them. I went deep on you.
I went deep, can so should? I mean, I think you know everyone should be doing?
Yeah, register sure, they had their AFSL, a strong financial services license. What they were able to advise me on. I did all the things that I should have done previously with Amish, and I met the most wonderful woman and she sat with me and she asked me all the right questions. She was so compassionate, she was so empathetic, and I just cried a lot, and she said, you're going to be okay. We're going to put a plan
in place. You you know, it's not a secret that you're not going to retire with as much superannuation and wealth as you thought you would based on losing your twenty year career savings. But we're going to do some other things and if you follow the plan, you're going to be fine. I'm very disciplined, So I did what she said. I put one hundred percent of my trust
into her, and she's still my financial planner today. We still work on strategies to build my wealth, manage my budget, manage my life, and you know that that's been a one of full support for me. I have a pretty contained life. I spend my money on experiences in travel. I don't you know, I don't live in a big place. I you know, I have a fully paid off car. I don't have any debt other than my you know where I live and you know, so things are pretty simple for me and I love to travel and that's
what that's what I try and do. So everything's planned, everything's disciplined, and over time it's you know, I have got back on my feet and I have found the ways to you know, have an incredible life.
And yeah, I'm so grateful for that.
Knowing you personally and we have a few mutual friends, I have no doubt you will make back that money because you're such a hard worker. You see great opportunities, and you're incredibly intelligent. So I feel like you've got a great financial plan behind you and she's going to get you the best place she can. I don't underestimate what you can actually do to leap from and see your expectations.
So definitely manifesting that for myself, that's what I like that.
Yeah, you know, miracles happen as well. Are you in contact with any of the victims still, because there's a long list of victims.
There's a long list of victims.
I met the majority of them through the case in Australia, So the case that where he was prosecuted in Australia fifteen victims, seven point six six million dollars, but we do know globally it's closer to seventy eighty one hundred million dollars. I did meet a lot of the victims
through that process, which and also through the podcast. They are the Samish, So that was an incredible opportunity for healing, I think for all of us, because when you meet other people and you realize that you're not alone in any situation in life that has flattened you, that is a blessing because you know, feeling alone in that grief
and that shame was horrible. And then when I met some of the other victims and became friends with them, shared stories and heard really the extent of his criminal past, that made me feel I don't know, it just gave me a lot of comfort. So yeah, I am still in contact with a bunch of them. They're all at different stages in their journeys, and that's what it is.
Now you've just written your first book. I want to hear about what inspired you to actually write this book up everything you've gone through.
Yeah, so the inspiration behind the book came. I've done a lot of talking about what happened with Hamish and through the podcast, through media interviews, and what I've realized is that it's very hard to explain the insidious nature of intimate fraud in a two minute interview or in fact even a twenty minute podcast. You know, there's so much that happens, and there's so much detail, and there's so much coercion that happened in the reliefationship that I
needed seventy five thousand words to explain that. And the other thing about the book is it's broken into three parts, so this before, during, and after Hamish. So a lot of people know what happened during the Hamish era. Yeah, you know, that's been well recorded. But what I really wanted to explain was my life before I met Hamish, and a whole bunch of things that happened to me in my life before Hamish, which I believe set me up in a way that gave me a level of
resilience to weather the storm when Hamish hit. So I go into detail about that. So, my father died when I was young, when I was about twenty six, of Lakemia. Very suddenly, my mum got breast cancer and my marriage broke down. My best friend's husband died, I had a miscarriage.
You know, there was a lot. A lot has happened.
Yeah, a lot has happened before I even came across Hamish in my forties. And then I also wanted to show that no matter what happened, you don't have to be financially flattened by a man to go through a really tough time. And I wanted to show that rebuilding a life is possible and there is hope and with time and the right support structures and the right mindset and things like that, that you can, you know, life
can be great afterwards. And I think, you know, grief and sadness can also coexist with joy and empowerment and things like that. And I wanted to explain that because after the podcast, it kind of the story went away and a lot of people say, oh, well, then what happened and did you get the money back? And how did you rebuild? And there's a lot of those questions.
So I wanted to explain in detail the full story that couldn't be grabbed in a two minute interview with a you know, a salacious headline like you know, vulnerable divorce, a Fuld's victim to a love rat. You know, like all the clickbaity stuff that's out there, which makes for interesting, you know story, but.
It's only touching the surface of what really has gone on it and doesn't put it in context, and it doesn't educate.
And you hear those stories, isn't like we were saying at the beginning. You hear those sort of those headlining clickbaity things and you go that that's not me, that would never happen to me. But you read a story of more detail and it helps educate people that it really can happen to anyone.
Did you find that as you were writing it was healing your heart?
Yeah, in a way that the stuff about Hamish I feel so fine with now. You know, I've done a lot of media. There's been a lot of talk about it.
The podcast, of course. I think the parts that were the most healing and the most cathartic were talking about all of the things that happened in my life before Hamish even came on the scene, which I probably, if I'm really honest, haven't done as much work on personally, and so to go through those were really sort of deep emotional reflections and you know, going through my journals of when I lived in India and you know, really delving deep into that time in my life when I
was experience it's in kind of you know, grief of a different kind. And then at the other end of the book, really reflecting on, you know, just how how far I've come and feeling really proud of the journey that I've been on and actually, you know, really having to think about what were the things that I did, because I think when you're in it, you're just getting through.
Each day survival.
It's survival. It's every moment. It's every day. It's like getting out of better, making a cup of day. Okay, I've done that. Now I've got to pack the lunches, do that, get on the bus and go to work. It is literally moment by moment. But then looking back, I think, oh, wow, you know I got I made it.
You know I made it through. I'm okay, like life is okay.
When you were going through the writing stage, did you discover new things about him? Were there any more like dirty surprises?
You had everything.
I think a lot of it had already been discovered through the court process. I mean, I think the thing is, nothing surprises me about the story or homish or you know, the extent of his lies, the people he has you know, taken money from. It does feel like, you know, at the time, it felt like every other day something new
was coming up. In writing the book seven years on, every now and again, a piece of information pops up that I think, wow, okay, you know, or someone will reach out to me and say, oh, I went to school with him, or you know. But to be honest, the stories are all the same. They're just lies and fanciful incarnations of what never happened.
So wow, what would you say is that was the most challenging part. Then when it came to sitting down and writing this book, what was the hardest I guess block or part to sort of push through growth?
Right, Probably a bit of way over.
Yeah, I think it was earlier on in my life, to be honest, talking about the death of my father and how my parents' marriage. You know, they were married for thirty two years when dad died, and watching my mum have to deal with that, that was, you know, and that pro process. At the time, I was really young. It was twenty six, twenty seven. I was working for a hedge fund and I went back to work really quickly. And I think back then, mental health and you know,
the conversation around these things wasn't as open. I just got back into work and just started putting my head down and my bum up and trying to push through, just push through and get on with life. And I don't think you know, and I think this is true for a lot of Western cultures, is that we're not taught how to grieve.
Yeah, that's so true.
And how do you know how to grieve when you don't see it around you? You just sort of, you know, it's a bit like the you know, the stiff upper lip, and we just keep going.
We just push on.
And I hate, I know, but you know, you're at work and it's not okay just to burst into tears and have a meltdown when you've got to deliver some of the campaign or something, you know. So I used to walk around the city back in those days, and I just have tears streaming down my face and I'd have my sunglasses on, and I think, where do all the people who are grieving go during the day, you know, why aren't they grieving rooms?
Why aren't their places you can go? And I didn't.
I didn't have a therapist at that time, probably couldn't afford it. You know, I was a lot younger. I didn't really understand the need to piece everything together and really support myself in that way. So going back to that time and thinking about how I dealt with that, and well, how I didn't deal with it, and how those emotions just you know, they catch up with you at some point, and I think this was the moment where they caught up with me. So writing those chapters
and then rereading them, and you know, I couldn't. There are some chapters in the book that I can't read without crying, you know, because it brings back so many memories.
So for me, that was the hardest thing.
But what it does, I think is provide readers with real insight into who I am as a person and what I've been through and why I was able to weather the storm. I think having a co author as well is an incredible privilege. Summer Land, who wrote the book with me. You know, there's this beautiful saying is that you can't read the label when you're inside the jar.
And she saw things in me and things that i'd been through that I probably would have just brushed over and said, you know, they're not that important whatever, you know, and she go, hey, on, how talk me through that? How are you feeling what was happening? An next minut would be a chapter, Wow, and an incredible chapter. And I think that was a really surprising part of writing the book as well.
Do you feel a sense of closure now? Yeah, I do.
I mean, this experience will be a part of me for the rest of my life. It's not something you just get over. It's not something you leave behind. It's a part of me. For me, it's been really interesting that this has fueled something inside me that is making me come and talk to people like you, like I want everyone to be fully aware and educated on these things. And what I'd say is you don't have to be
swindled by a comment to be financially vulnerable. You know, you can have a serious illness, you can be financially vulnerable through divorce or death. And what this has shown me is that we have to take a lot more agency over our finances, especially as women, because you know,
it's our future, it's our security. It gives us choices, and you know, there is closure in the sense of this happened and we're moving on and we're rebuilding and we've got a good life now, but you know, a real sort of fuel to continue talking about it, to educate people and help people be more financially resilient.
I suppose what are you hoping that the readers will gain from reading your story.
I'm hoping that they will, you know, really understand that this can happen to anyone. I'm hoping that they can see some of the signs that I didn't see, and, if not in their own lives, in people close to them, because sometimes the people close to you can see what's
happening that you can't. So opening up a conversation around that, and I think regardless of you know, financial trauma or any type of thing that someone goes through, I really want people to feel like there's hope, like there is there is a life after, and it can be great life after and I'm hoping that I can just act as that beacon of hope for anyone going through a challenging time.
Absolutely, now Hamish was about to call him, Bax is going to be released and listen two.
Years about two years? Yeah, twenty twenty six. How do you feel about that? And if you.
Were to see him, what would you say to him?
I feel like no sentence would have been long enough to you know, take away the pain that he's caused so many people. But the law is the law, so he'll be released potentially on parole in July twenty twenty six. Like, if I'm really honest, I try not to give it too much thought. I've just I want to spend my energy on me and making my life better. And you know his surf to a sentence, We hope that you
know there's some lessons being learned. But again, I just I really try and focus on me and what my life is going to look like moving forward, and I feel like that's the best use of my energy.
I completely agree.
Well, your book The Last Victim, when does it hit the bookshelves.
It's hit the bookshelves on the first of May, and it's available in all good bookstores online, there's an audio version and yeah, well.
I cannot wait to start reading your book. And I think this is so important for everyone. You know, people go to a self protection mode where they think, oh, that wouldn't happen to me, But it's that's the way
that they think until it actually happens to them. And it is so important to be aware of all the signs the warnings, listen to your gut, as you said, having those open conversations with people that you know and trust about what's going on, so that they can potentially shed some light and I'll give you an different opinion, or even give you a resource to go and check someone out, like on the ACID register and checking their
license details and asking additional questions and gauging someone's feedback or their answers when they're asked these probing questions, which is so incredibly important.
I do have a resource list on my website if people want to go there and download it, and it's a whole bunch of kind of ideas and websites to go to to just double check everything if you're unsure. So there's some really good ideas in there so you don't have to do research yourself.
Well, Tracy, thank you so much, and I really hope everyone takes some time to go and read your book and take in this wise wisdom and share the wisdom as well well other people through these conversations, so that we can create a strong awareness and knowledge around these I guess creatures and.
Characters and parasites.
That's all say, so that we protect ourselves and that this does not ever happen again. Well, look, thank you so much. Last Victim is on the bookshelves shortly, and if you need any details from Tracy, please head to her website those free resources.
Tracy, thank you so much for coming.
Thanks Canna, thank you now, Thank you everyone for listening to Sugar Mamma's fireplay. Until next Monday morning, stay motivated, empowered, and never stop seeking new ways to achieve or in Tracy's face.
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