Scams: how to avoid losing your money to increasingly sophisticated scammers

We all know someone who has fallen victim to a scam – a phone call purporting to be from Telstra, a link supposedly from your bank, PayPal or the ATO. The world of scamming has become increasingly and terrifyingly sophisticated, and you’re at risk.

Far from a kid with a laptop in their parent’s basement, scammers are now likely to work with hundreds of others, have targets and procedure manuals – and be very well trained to convince you of their legitimacy.

After a close friend lost $3,000 to a phone scammer purporting to be from NAB, Gemma Dale interviewed Tara McCarthy from NAB Security to understand – and help you understand:

• The most common types of scams, from phishing and malware to computer ransoms
• Why phishing is now targeted, as scammers match details from stolen databases with your publicly available information
• How the Brisbane City Council lost $450,000 to the kind of scam being directed at small business, and
• What you can do to protect yourself.