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.
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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.
I'm Sam Becauseloski, We're.
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 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.
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.
Here.
Are scams actually increasing in Australia.
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, and I think they're targeting younger people as well.
And I feel like, because we're so much more connected in so many different ways, there's actually just more avenues for scams.
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 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 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 we can get to that.
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 of makes that increase even worse.
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.
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?
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.
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, 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 a bunch of gift cards that they are then required to take photos of and send back to me.
But just to clarify, it's not actually you sending the email.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
Now.
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 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 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.
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.
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 infiltrating the scam landscape to make them appear so much more realistic than they ever could before.
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.
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. 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 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.
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?
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 call you.
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?
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.
No, But it's got a I always try and work out the acronyms.
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
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 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.
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?
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
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.
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.
And wow COVID, Yeah that makes sense.
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?
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
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
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.
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 good rule of thumb to stop, check and protect.
No one should be putting you under pressure to complete a discrete task.
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
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.
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 the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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.
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