Discussion with Dr Jacqueline Drew, an Associate Professor of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University | On the topic of scams current in online platforms

Now, have you ever been scammed online? I must admit I’ve come pretty close a couple of times, almost paid for toll roads that weren’t mine, almost bought concert tickets that probably didn’t exist. We heard about a crazy scam on the ABC Gippsland breakfast yesterday of Sue Vandenberg in Trafalgar, who was dealing with a fake address on buy swap sell pages.

My address has been used for a scam on by swap and sells. So yeah, I’ve had people turning up for couches and prams and fridges and washing machines and understandably the people turning up are pretty upset because they’ve actually paid for these items or at least paid deposits on these items, but they don’t exist.

That’s horrifying, isn’t it, Having random people show up to your house and asking for items? That’s Sue Vandenberg in Trafalgar there. Well, it prompted Ron Hall from Orbost to call in and let us know his experience about getting scammed on Facebook as well. Good morning to you, Ron. You were scrolling through Facebook and ended up getting scammed.

What happened was all about Elon Musk’s new platform for Bitcoin and it told you for Australians only $350 it cost you. don’t have to do nothing. Press this and put your name in and Jay Malek details and this and that. Then you get a phone call to pay the $350. Well, it’s actually $360 something that comes out of your bank account. They tell you they give you a code number to write down. And if anyone rings you to talk about this project, if they can’t give you that code number don’t talk to them because it’s a scam.

Right? So the scammers are telling you to watch out for scams.

Yeah, But what I’m on about on Facebook, you know, I’m just looking at different things and it comes up now they’ve got Andrew Forrest, 20 Forest, he’s starting one off and you got Gina Rinehart on. She’s floated one year do the same there and that’s all the time on Facebook. That’s what I’m getting all the time.

All right. Well, thank you for that, Ron. Hall there in Orbost talking about his issues with scams He says that’s all he’s seeing all the time on Facebook. And I certainly empathise with Ron about that. Well, Dr Jacqueline Drew is an associate professor with the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. Good morning, Jacqueline. How often are these sort of things happening at the moment It’s pretty prominent, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely.

It’s just prolific and there’s no sign of these types of scams decreasing in the near future. So, you know, Australia in 2021 lost about $2 billion to scams and in 2022 that went up to $3 billion. So it you know, the amount of scams happening and the amount of money that Australians are losing is just enormous.

The Facebook thing that Ron’s talking about as well, there’s so many on Facebook, right? And I just sort of wonder why can’t they do more about it? Why are they unable, Jacqueline, to sort of clamp down more on these scams that are getting poor, innocent people like Ron?

Any online platform, you’re going to see these scams all over the platforms. Unfortunately, offenders sometimes get more sophisticated. So online platforms definitely need to do better. Regulators need to do better I guess we need to become even more suspicious when we’re scrolling online. But, you know, there is systems in place where these online platforms are trying to use algorithms to try to identify which ones are scams and which ones aren’t. But it just becomes difficult. There is enormous amounts taken down but as soon as you take one down, it pops up again. I’ve heard people talk about it like it’s a wack a mole. You know, as soon as you get one down, there might be three more. So the offenders also change. So they get on to the idea of how we’re identifying them, why they’re their scam ads are being taken down and then they slightly change their methodology and for a little while they’re going to escape being detected.

Right. But can’t Facebook, you know, I mean, we all have to sign up and create a profile and log in to use a site like that. Why aren’t they able to sort of, you know, maybe do more in terms of verifying identification or something to stop people creating profiles and posting on the site? Or is that too simple?

Well, I mean, it’s certainly one way. And, you know, there is programmes and policies in place that try to identify individuals that are fake and trying to create these profiles for these types of crimes. But of course, we also see that sometimes real profiles are taken over. So, you know, the scammers will take over real people’s profiles or steal someone’s identity. And it actually, you know, on the you know, Facebook is looking at it. looks like a real person because this person’s identity has been stolen. But of course behind that is the scammer using their identity for that purpose.

Yeah, I think we all have probably seen something like that. I’m speaking with Dr Jacqueline Drew here, an associate professor, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. You’re listening to ABC Gippsland. I’m Richard Crabtree. Jacqueline, In the Federal Budget this week there was also an announcement of $87 million to be spent on a new National Anti-scam centre that’s going to be based within the ABC the Competition and Consumer Commission. Is that going to help? Is that going to take some steps to toward fixing this problem?

Anything we can do to try to tackle this problem in a multifaceted way, I think is a step in the right direction. So the ALC has been doing a lot of good work for a lot of time. You know, they’re the people that we go to in terms of finding out the statistics and how many how much money is lost and how many victims they are. And they also take action. So last year, they took action against Facebook around these celebrity scams, which I think your caller was talking about it, the ALC and the funding. But it’s 87 million, I think you said, and we’re talking about billions of dollars in scams. So it will be helpful. It’s a step in the right direction. Whether it will put a dent in the victimisation and the amount of money lost, I hope so. It can’t hurt.

Michael. All right. Thank you for that, Jacqueline. That’s Dr Jacqueline Drew there, an associate professor at Griffith University, a bit of an expert on scams. And I wonder if Ron Hall’s still there on the line. Ron, were you able to sort this all out with your bank after this scam or are you at risk of losing any more money? How are you going? No, because I rang up Scamwatch is up in Melbourne and they told me to go to my bank the other week and tell them what happened.

They’ll get me money back. So I went and told them and I got a message on my phone that they’re looking into it the other day and yesterday I actually got the thing to say that found out, you know, where my money went or something. And so that would be the insurance time for Commonwealth Bank, I suppose.

Right. Okay. Well, that’s Ron Hall there. Sounds like you might not be too bad. The scam that he ended up with from scrolling on Facebook lives in Orbost. Ron got a call here from Melissa in Traralgon. Melissa, you’ve got your own story of a scam. What happened to you?

Hi. I nearly got scammed last year with a workplace scam.

Okay What happened?

Well, I was looking for work. I was on jobseeker and had to apply for a certain number of jobs a month. And I’ve got some health issues that I need to work from home. And I posted in a Facebook group to say I was looking for work and you know, this is me. These are my skills.