An embarrassed Perth grandmother has told how she was tricked into handing over $10,000 in a sophisticated online scam.
Sally Marchant, 59, was chatting with a Facebook friend in December, but what she didn’t know was that she was actually talking to a scammer who had hacked her friend’s account using artificial intelligence.
Then her ‘friend’ told her about a competitive opportunity where she could get $200,000 in exchange for a $10,000 down payment.
Even though the scenario seems hard to believe, Marchant sent the money because he trusted the person he was talking to.
“They were very encouraging and said, ‘Yes, do it, do it,'” Ms. Marchant said. nine news.
“I really thought I was talking to my friend, texting him.”
Sally Marchant thought she was chatting with her friend on Facebook but it was actually a scammer who had hacked her account
Perth grandmother tapped her home mortgage (pictured) to pay for scam
READ MORE: Melbourne man loses $20,000 in sneaky new scam after just one real text message
A customer was scammed three weeks after receiving this text message that his bank confirmed as legitimate
Marchant tapped into his mortgage to get the $10,000.
But then he had doubts and called his friend who quickly informed him that they had not been chatting and that he did not know anything about the alleged investment.
‘You could spend that on so many other wonderful things. So I got angry with myself and felt quite humiliated,” Ms Marchant said.
Consumer Protection Commissioner Trish Blake said Australians should be wary of all electronic messages that talk about monetary opportunities.
“Any message that says you could win something (even) if it comes from someone who claims to know you, contact the person with the details you would normally contact them with, not through the message you received,” he said. saying.
A fifth of all Australian money lost in scams is fleeced through social media platforms.
The federal government says well-resourced tech giants can do more to protect users.
Nearly 3,800 people reported losses worth $15.9 million at the hands of scammers who started on social media platforms or online forums, according to the National Anti-Scam Center’s second quarterly update since its inception.
Australians over 65 were the most likely to fall victim to social media scams, which typically involve scammers using data from the platforms to strategically target people with fake ads.
Although the quarterly report recorded advances in losses from scams originating from social networks compared to the previous period, the money lost in this way had skyrocketed 249 percent since 2020.
Losses from social media scams reached $95 million in 2023: WhatsApp accounted for 47 percent of losses, Facebook 20 percent, online dating sites nine percent, and Instagram another nine percent.
Speaking at the Global Fraud Summit in London, Australia’s financial services minister Stephen Jones said the social license of these digital companies was at risk.
The minister singled out Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as “the elephant in the room.”
“There is a message here for Meta, in particular, which is responsible for about 80 percent of the losses: you are not above the law.”
Social media platforms are a favorite of hackers – around 67 per cent of Australians’ losses are due to online scams occurring through Whatsapp and Facebook.
The federal government has been consulting with social media players and other companies on mandatory industry codes that would require digital platforms, banks and telecommunications companies to reduce the risk of scams or face sanctions.
Jones said he was “disappointed” by Meta’s response to the queries.
‘These people are the greatest technologists in the world, they employ the greatest information technologists, the greatest engineers, the greatest process experts in the world, they are the greatest and the best.
“Don’t tell me you can’t do more.”
At the global summit, world leaders acknowledged the role of social media companies in allowing scams to spread and the need for the industry as a whole to step up anti-fraud measures.
Alex Soderlund, policy adviser at consumer group Choice, said urgent action was needed given that big tech companies “have a perverse incentive not to act on scams because they generate advertising revenue.”
“So it is clear that only strict and mandatory rules to prevent scams, developed and enforced by a regulator, will result in meaningful change for consumers,” said Mr Soderlund.
The consumer group is one of 20 internationally that signed a statement calling on social media and other technology companies to better protect people from scams, through concrete measures such as improving account verification and better monitoring, or face repercussions.