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Speaker 1: Right now. We're keen to talk about Territorians, particularly seniors,

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Speaker 1: being urged to speak up, to share and report scams

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Speaker 1: this week with scam awareness in the spotlight now. Scammers

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Speaker 1: tend to target older Australians due to their perceived vulnerability

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Speaker 1: and often believe that they may have substantial life savings.

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Speaker 1: Joining us on the line to tell us a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about how you can protect yourself is National

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Speaker 1: Seniors Australia Chief Executive Officer Chris Grice. Good morning to you,

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Speaker 1: Chris hi here going yeah, really well, Chris Fursley, can

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Speaker 1: you take us through the stats when it comes to

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Speaker 1: scams impacting seniors and the losses incurred.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess at the moment, in particular the cohort

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Speaker 2: of age plus sixty five, they're the ones that are

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Speaker 2: actually being impacted the most in terms of the current scams.

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Speaker 2: And we're looking at about last year's numbers were over

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Speaker 2: seventy two and a half thousand scams reported one hundred

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Speaker 2: and twenty million dollars was the loss and through things

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Speaker 2: like investment romance and fishing scams unfortunately, and they're through

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Speaker 2: like phone calls, all all online scams that actually occurred.

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Speaker 1: It's terrible, isn't it. And it's like it's it's terrible

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Speaker 1: that they that scam is quite often target more senior Australians.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly is that? And I think it's because of

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Speaker 2: you know that they're I guess embracing technology, but it's

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Speaker 2: new to them. Many of them, you know, sort of

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Speaker 2: didn't use computers sort of a large extent in their

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Speaker 2: employment situation, and I guess that, you know, they're sort

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Speaker 2: of they sometimes don't have that support as well, they

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Speaker 2: don't necessarily have friends that maybe they're all in the

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Speaker 2: same situation where they're all sort of struggling their way through,

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Speaker 2: and then sometimes they just inadvertently click on things like

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Speaker 2: links and what have you that they don't actually realize

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Speaker 2: that it's actually something sinister, that it's not something friendly.

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Speaker 1: Now, I know they must be all types of different

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Speaker 1: sort of methods that scammers use, but are there are

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Speaker 1: they commonly sort of used scams that result in financial losses.

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Speaker 2: The Believe it or Not. In terms of the last

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Speaker 2: twelve months, phone calls were the number one contact method

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Speaker 2: used by scammers and that's where the most amount of

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Speaker 2: money was lost, where people actually ringing up proporing to

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Speaker 2: be from whether it's the tax office or a government department,

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Speaker 2: or from their bank. And and basically unfortunately people and

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Speaker 2: in Burntley are sort of thinking that these people are

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Speaker 2: real and they're handing over their personal details and then

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Speaker 2: that's where it all starts to go wrong in terms

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Speaker 2: of the being scanned. Unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: Look, had we've had different senior territorians come on the

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Speaker 1: show before and tell us about situations where they've been scammed,

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Speaker 1: and I actually think it's so important that they do

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Speaker 1: to just raise that awareness as well for others, because

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Speaker 1: it can happen so much more easily than what people realize.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. There used to be very much a stigma attached

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Speaker 2: that like you were supposedly, oh, you know, you should

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Speaker 2: have known better. But the thing is that the scams

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Speaker 2: are so sophisticated. Even people who are from the technology

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Speaker 2: industry or in financial services they can't even tell. So

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Speaker 2: if they can't tell, well, then you know, seeing as

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Speaker 2: sort of are never going to hope have a hope

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Speaker 2: in terms of being able to work out what's right

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Speaker 2: and wrong. And I suppose that's probably the key message

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Speaker 2: is that if in doubt, just stop yep, they know,

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Speaker 2: hang up or delete that link if you're uncertain, and

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Speaker 2: I guess, you know, check with people, whether it's an

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Speaker 2: other organization, or check with a friend or a work

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Speaker 2: colleague or whatever to see, hey, look, does this look right.

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Speaker 2: And obviously if it is a scam, report and report

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Speaker 2: those scams to scam Watch and the website address for

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Speaker 2: that is scam watch dot gov dot dot au.

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Speaker 1: And that's one of the other things as well, Chris,

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Speaker 1: that we've been told over the years doing the show

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Speaker 1: that sometimes when it happens as well, people get so

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Speaker 1: sort of embarrassed that they don't even want to tell

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Speaker 1: their family or they don't even sort of want to

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Speaker 1: tell anybody because they they they're almost quite ashamed of

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Speaker 1: the fact that it's happened. But they, you know, little

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Speaker 1: do they realize that it's happening way more often or

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Speaker 1: to way more people than what they probably thought.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, and probably that you know that number that I

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Speaker 2: quoted before around that's seventy odd thousand scams and one

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty million dollars that's what's been reported exactly.

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Speaker 2: To your point, there's probably a big chunk that, you know,

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Speaker 2: beyond that number and people shouldn't not feel embarrassed by this.

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Speaker 2: And I guess the more that we have I guess

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Speaker 2: the community shares this information, it means that less people

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Speaker 2: are going to be scammed because they're going to be

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Speaker 2: on the lookout for certain things that are going to

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Speaker 2: come through. And probably an important quickly an important thing

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Speaker 2: to mention is that there's an organization called id Care.

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Speaker 2: So id Care there are a national identity and cyber

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Speaker 2: support service. It's free of charge, and what they do

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Speaker 2: is they actually support people that if they have been scammed,

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Speaker 2: they help them basically get their I guess their life

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Speaker 2: back together in terms of getting their identity back. And

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Speaker 2: their phone number is one eight hundred five nine five

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Speaker 2: one six zero or at idcare dot org. And they

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Speaker 2: are an independent organization, not for profit and their job

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Speaker 2: is to actually help people like seniors to resurrect their

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Speaker 2: personal situation that if they have been scammed, and they

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Speaker 2: provide that support to make them safe again online.

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Speaker 1: Well, Chris Grice, the National Senior Australia Chief Executive Officer,

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time this morning. I know a

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Speaker 1: lot of our senior listeners this morning will as well.

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Speaker 2: Excellent thank you, thank you for your time, thank

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Speaker 1: You, thanks so much,