Scam Sense: Safeguarding Your Finances

Understanding the seriousness of scams is crucial, especially as Australians have lost $3 billion to scams last year. Scammers are constantly evolving, making awareness and education essential for protection.

- Discussing how to respond if you or someone you know becomes a scam victim 
- Reviewing a real-life scam case study to illustrate tactics used by fraudsters 
- Providing actionable steps to protect finances and identity after a scam 

If you found this useful, please share it with your friends or close relatives, and don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts and YouTube. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to CyberEvident and Cyber Awareness
• 17:00 Real
• 51:00 Steps to Take if You Fall Victim to a Scam

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi everyone, welcome to CyberEvident. This is a non-profit initiative to spread cyber awareness and help individuals, small businesses and communities. In this podcast, we will discuss if you or your loved one ever falls victim to a scam. But before that, do you know that Australians have lost $3 billion to scams last year? Australians have lost $3 billion to scams last year, though we think that we are smart and we will never get scammed. But that's not what the scammers think. They are working day and night to find out the ways where they can even steal a single dollar from the people. As much as the car thieves are using new technologies to steal the cars, the online scammers are using technology advancement, pairing it with the fear to scam the people. But a thought comes to my mind what did we have if we ever get scammed? Today, I'm going to tell you that you are not alone in this. The banks and the financial institutions are providing aid to help you get back on track.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Let's start with a real-life example. Meet Sara, who is 42 years old, a marketing director from Sydney. One day she met a friend who was influenced through her Instagram advertisement, which provides 10 times guaranteed return of her initial investment in cryptocurrency. 10 times guaranteed return of her initial investment in cryptocurrency. This sounds familiar. Trusting her friend, she transferred over $5,000 to this platform. The platform websites looked professional, even had customer support and testimonials, but as soon as she tried to withdraw the earnings, the website was inaccessible. The account was disabled. She was unable to connect with them.

Speaker 1: 1:49

What steps we have if it ever happens to you or your close relatives? Step one you need to block the payment methods that you have used for the transfer. Step two secure your finances. Contact your bank and credit card providers. They may be able to reverse the transaction and may have a fraud protection enabled. If you have sent money via third-party platforms like PayPal, wise, connect with them. They might be having a fraud protection enabled as well. If this was a mobile application, google or Apple support may help you to get some money back which was transferred over a period of time.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Step 3 is reporting the scams to the authorities. Australian Cyber Security Centres run an initiative which is Scam Watch. You can report the scam there. File a local police complaint if you have lost a significant amount of money. Bank and credit card companies have fraud protection teams that can help you to recover some of your money or support you if your identity got stolen. Some of the banks now offer scam reimbursement programs, so please connect with your provider. Step 4 is protecting your identity. If your personal details like passport, driving license or banking information was stolen, contact idcareorg Australia, national Identity and Cyber Support Services. Set up two-factor authentication and change your password immediately. Step five is getting support If scam have caused a financial distress, contact National Debt Helpline for free financial counseling.

Speaker 1: 3:27

You might be wondering are banks and governments doing enough to combat the scams? Let's dive into the latest changes. The Australian Banking Association has announced strong fraud prevention measures, including real-time monitoring of scams, increased reimbursement for certain types of scams, ai-powered fraud detection. The government is also stepping into with a new scam law which requires banks and telecom providers to detect the scams at earlier stages. So here's the truth Prevention is still the better protection.

Speaker 1: 3:58

So before we wrap up this episode, let's go through a few of the tips the too-good-to-be-true rule If an offer seems too good to be true, it's probably is a scam. The verify before you trust rule Google the company. Read reviews and check scam watch before sending money. The think before you click rule Never click on a random link in the emails or the messaging they could be part of phishing attack. In the emails or the messaging they could be part of phishing attack. That's it for today's episode. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends or close relatives, and don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Stay safe, stay cyber evident and see you next time.