Anna Bligh interview on ABC Radio Darwin

Rick Hind: Anna Bligh is the CEO of the Australian Banking Association. Welcome back to 105.7 ABC Radio Darwin.

Anna Bligh: Good morning, great to be with you.

Rick Hind: Is it getting easier to scam people out of money from their bank accounts? Given how good technology is, the scammers seem to have as good a technology as anyone, and they’re tricking us.

Anna Bligh: Well, I’d actually say in Australia it’s getting harder for scammers. We’re one of the very few jurisdictions anywhere in the world that have seen a very significant reduction in the number of scams, and, more importantly, the amount of money being lost to scams.

But it’s still too much. So it is a bit of whack-a-mole, you’re right, every time banks or telephone companies identify a scam and get rid of it, you know, these are very sophisticated international criminal gangs, and they’ll try and get in another door.

And that’s why it’s important, I think, for all of us as customers to also be very vigilant. And this time of year, it’s a great time of year to get a bargain in the half-yearly clearance sales, but that means it’s a bit of a paradise for scammers, because they know you’re online, they know you’re looking for a bargain.

And, it’s really important to have a very good look at those so-called bargains, because sometimes, if it sounds too good to be true, it actually is.

Rick Hind: When bank customers get scammed, banks can step in and reimburse them. They did, my bank did, when I got scammed for six grand several years ago. Someone from a call centre asked me simply, “Is this your current address?” I said no, and that was enough to break into my account. But how much does it cost the banking sector? It’s going down, but it’s still a significant cost to your members, isn’t it?

Anna Bligh: Look, there is a very significant cost these days to running a modern bank. Australians are more and more banking digitally. We’re carrying our own bank branch in our handbag or our back pocket, in our mobile phone, and that means it’s now part of the cost of doing business that you invest in very significant financial fraud-fighting, software and hardware. And banks are working 24 hours, around the clock, stopping money going out of your account to a scam, a known scam; recovering money once it’s left and gone to another account.

But again, as customers we can help ourselves sometimes by thinking twice, and this time of year, look, it’s a prime time for scammers.

Rick Hind: It really is, isn’t it? EOFY, I didn’t even know what that was a few years ago, and now, boy, you get hammered. Your phone just pings with all kinds of discounts, “make sure you buy all this equipment just before the end of the financial year.” What can people do to make sure they’re actually on a legit website or a legit vendor and not somebody trying to fleece them of their details?

Anna Bligh: Look, the first thing I’d say is just stop and take a breath and think and have a really good look at a couple of things. Firstly, the URL for the website, the name of the website. Have a good look is there something odd in the spelling? Is there something in the way it’s formatted that doesn’t look right?

If you get something on your phone that says, “Press this link for a bargain”, don’t press the link. Those links that come into your phone are often a really dangerous thing to do. They’ll take you somewhere, they’ll start asking for personal details and unfortunately, that’s one of the ways that scammers can get into your account.

Because it’s tax time as well, people do start thinking about getting their tax done, or getting some support with their tax. So, scammers also use the name of the ATO, the Australian Tax Office, and you might get something that says, “This is the ATO, you need to contact us for these reasons.” And of course, people worry.

The ATO estimates that email scams about the ATO have increased by more than 300 per cent. So, really important to remember: the ATO will never send an unsolicited message with a link asking you to return personal information or log on to their online services. And the ATO will never use social media to ask you to provide personal information.

So, be aware of anything that pops up on your phone claiming to be the ATO. It’s not how the ATO works, but it can be quite worrying, none of us want to have a tax bill we didn’t know about, so don’t let the scammers panic you, is probably one of the big messages.

Rick Hind: That’s a really important question, because you don’t want to ignore the ATO. So how do you know it is the ATO? What do they actually do?

Anna Bligh: Well, if you got a message from the ATO, or someone claiming to be the ATO, what you should do is: do not press the link. You should go to myGov or actually ring the ATO and say, “My name is Joe Smith, I got a message on my phone, is there an issue that I should be dealing with?” Like, actually go the old-fashioned way and find the ATO phone number. But also, if you have an accountant, talk to your accountant. Don’t let these scammers panic you, that’s what they trade on.

But Aussies will spend, remarkably, Aussies will spend over $10 billion in end-of-financial-year sales in the next fortnight. So, there’s a lot of money there. It’s a bit of a honeypot for people who have got a criminal turn of mind.

Rick Hind: Wow. We really do love a sale, don’t we? I mean, we get into the Thanksgiving sales, that’s a holiday that has absolutely nothing to do with Australia, and yet we’re on board.

Anna Bligh: Yep! And everybody, why wouldn’t you want to get a bargain? But that’s why you can be very vulnerable at this time of year.  I just go back, if it looks too good to be true, take a step back and say, “Do I really need it?” Because I don’t want to find that I’ve sent $100 to a website, and I’m never going to get that pair of shoes, or whatever it is. So, of course it’s smart to buy things on sale, but it’s a really tricky time of year when criminals are out there trying to get into your bank account. So again — don’t follow links in emails or social media posts, there’s a real chance they’ll lead you to a fake site. You start filling in anything about your personal details and that can lead you straight to the loss of a lot of money.

Rick Hind: The Australian Tax Office, their number is 13 28 61. That’s 13 28 61. So if in doubt, just ring the ATO. Yes, you’ll have to speak to a human, but that’s better than having your money ripped off.

The other one, parcel delivery?

Anna Bligh: Almost be certain that if you get a social media link claiming to be the ATO and wanting information, it is 100% not the ATO.

Rick Hind: Yeah, that’s a good tip as well. Thank you. Anna Bligh is the CEO of the Australian Banking Association. I’m an online shopper, I buy a lot of stuff, a lot of things are delivered you’re worried about when the package is arriving. But this is also when scammers can strike.

Anna Bligh: Oh look, they will. They’re out there to get your money. This is their business model. And they look for times of the year when you might be particularly vulnerable. Valentine’s Day is a terrible day for romance scams. People coming into the Christmas period… But this end-of-financial-year bargain hunting is something that people need to be just a little bit careful about.

So, you know, thank you for bringing this to the attention of your listeners, because, as I said, we’re up against very sophisticated criminal minds. Banks are investing literally hundreds of millions of dollars into their software systems, into their technology, into their fraud and crime teams. But out here, as customers, we can do a little bit to protect ourselves as well. And I would say, though, if anyone does feel that they’ve had something that might be a scam, even if you don’t press on the link, if you can report it, the federal government has a body called Scamwatch. You can just Google Scamwatch, or report it to your bank. That helps banks and telcos and others identify a new scam. So, if you see something and think, “That is dodgy,” report it, because then we can cut it off at the knees.

Rick Hind: And it can actually make a difference. I’m a little bit surprised that we’re doing better than other countries. I can only imagine what their phones are doing, if ours are pinging like wild at this time of year, with what are clearly scams, and we’re doing better than elsewhere.

Anna Bligh: Look, it’s a testament, I think, to the work that banks and telcos and government have done in the last probably four years, five years.-There’s a lot of things that banks are able to stop before it ever gets to you, or to identify. They’re now sharing information in real time. So, every time a bank fraud team sees a new scam, they report it immediately, and that means the other banks can identify that dodgy account and shut it down. There’s a lot of things happening that you’ll never see, a lot of teams out there working 24/7. And, that’s really one of the biggest and most important things that banks and telcos can do to protect you.

Rick Hind: The news is beating us. That’s Anna Bligh from the Banking Association.

Ends

Anna BlighScams