Loading summary
Transcript28 lines
- [00:01]
A
So in July last year, I was alerted to a profile that was live on Bumble, and it was using the image of Hamish MacLaren, who was presenting as Steve 53 when Tracey hall was sent that profile.
- [00:17]
B
The man pictured Hamish McLaren was locked up in prison.
- [00:20]
A
So it was pretty shocking to see that because 10 years earlier he had presented himself as somebody that I met on a dating app. However, that time his name was Max Tavita and he was 41.
- [00:32]
B
He'd been jailed for scamming 15 Australians out of $7.6 million, including Tracey, his girlfriend and final victim, whose life savings he stole after meeting her under a fake identity.
- [00:44]
A
I still don't know whether that was him operating that profile or not, but I think that's actually beside the point. Either way, incredibly dangerous for women, really.
- [00:54]
B
Now, as McLaren prepares for release on parole this week, Tracey says the systems that allowed him into her life still haven't been fixed. I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am today. Romance scam advocate and survivor Tracey hall on the conman who stole her life savings. The growing romance scam industry costing Australians tens of millions of dollars a year, and whether dating apps are doing enough to protect the people using them. It's Tuesday, july seven. Tracey, a decade ago, Hamish McLaren stole your life savings, more than $300,000. Tell me about what happened.
- [01:43]
A
So we met on a dating app 10 years ago and we started a relationship that went on for nearly 18 months. And he basically continued on for that time presenting himself as maximum Tavesha. He was a chief financial officer for a family office, so high level finance executive. We took family holidays. We had a very much an in real life relationship planning our future together. And it wasn't until about 16 months later that I woke up to a Crime Stoppers video of him being arrested outside of his apartment. And of course I didn't know what was going on. I knew him as this man that I was in a relationship with and building a future with. And very soon after dealing with detectives and law enforcement, I was told that his name was actually Hamish McLaren and he had been arrested for swindling 15 Australian victims out of $7.6 million.
- [02:34]
B
The vengeance of his victims today came thumping down on serial con man Hamish McLaren, jailed for at least 12 years in prison.
- [02:43]
A
What he had done was convinced and groomed me to set up a self managed super fund that I believed was in my name. But there was a bunch of false documentation and, you know, a web of lies and actually discovered that it wasn't in my name. So I lost 22 years of career superannuation. He stole $317,000 from me in the process, which at the time was my life savings. And he was sentenced to 12 years in jail with a nine year non parole period.
- [03:11]
B
And so what was the long term impact of that on you? Were you able to get any of that money back?
- [03:17]
A
No, no one received any money back as part of. So yeah, the impact was obviously a financial hit. A very big, big financial hit. So at 42, as a single mother, I had to start again financially. And then on top of that, for me there was sort of an emotional and psychological betrayal and devastation that went with that. So having to recover from that is probably been just as hard as recovering from the financial deceit and the financial loss. But yeah, it's completely impacted my life, you know, how could it not?
- [03:56]
B
And so once you were made aware of this profile on Bumble, talk me through what you did.
- [04:01]
A
Yeah, so I tried to find some people on LinkedIn that were in trust and safety or law enforcement at Bumble. So I reached out to quite a few of them, but in the end, essentially they said that they couldn't talk to me, that I needed to fill in a generic web form. And I actually just wanted to speak to a human being. As you can imagine, my levels of trust are quite low. And putting all of this information into a generic web form when I was very, very concerned about the safety of women on the app at the time just seemed like a very poor response. And then I also contacted the Esafety commissioner who acted very swiftly and put me in touch with one of her staff members who helped me through the process. Okay.
- [04:45]
B
And can we talk a bit more broadly about safety on dating apps? Because this has been a kind of long standing issue for a lot of these apps. We do have a voluntary online dating code now. Tell me about what that code was supposed to fix and, and where you think the gaps are now.
- [05:02]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's still so many gaps. And this is my issue is that 10 years on after I was deceived through meeting a fake profile or a fake identity on a dating app, nothing's changed. The issues are still the same. And yes, there are some safety features that the platforms have implemented, but in my opinion, they're tissue thin. You know, they are so easy to manipulate and weaponize by criminals or bad actors. It is not hard to be anyone you want to be on a dating app. Fake name, fake date of birth, fake email address, fake profile, fake everything. And that's very dangerous for people on these apps who are, you know, looking for genuine connection and love. This is how we meet people now. So it's not unusual to be on a dating app. So there is a voluntary code and that was put in place, you know, by, for a way to, for the industry to self regulate. But if you have an industry self regulating where their incentives are in conflict with the things that need to be put in place to keep people safe, it's never going to work. They're incentivized by how many active users they have, what their engagement rates are. And to put something like identification verification in as a mandatory safety feature is going to be in conflict to all of those incentives that they're based on. This technology is available now. So on Bumble right now you can actually ID verify yourself, but it's voluntary. So who are the people that are not going to do that is the exact people that we don't want on those platforms.
- [06:43]
B
Coming up, from scammer to scam industry, how AI is supercharging romance scams? Tracey, I know you've spoken with other women who've had money stolen by men they've met perhaps on dating apps. So how often is this happening? To what extent are dating apps being used as a source for people to find potential victims to scam?
- [07:13]
A
It's a huge point of entry for criminals and what we're seeing now is that it isn't these sort of, these lone, these lone ranges like Hamish that, you know, are opportunistic people that are, that are preying on an individual level. What we are seeing now, especially in space of scams and fraud, is transnational organised crime. So these are groups that sort of sit in compounds in, in places like Southeast Asia. There are thousands and thousands of employees that, that work in these compounds that are often victims of human trafficking themselves. And they have access to technology, data systems, playbooks, everything that allows them to commit this type of crime at scale. I speak to Romance 4 Victims and, and victims of scams every week, Every week. And the stories are the same. It's a profile of somebody that they met online, either on a dating app or social media platform. They were a fake identity operated by somebody out of a, you know, one of these scam businesses or these scam compounds and they've lost thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. The ability to create fake profiles for weaponization for these crimes is just too easy. AI has absolutely supercharged these thousands of fake profiles. Beautiful men and women using things like voice cloning, to make it sound like the person. So accents are removed. For example, there are examples of real time deep fake and face swapping technology. So you think you're safe or you think you're on the right path with someone because you've done a video call and it's actually, you know, a deep faked or a face swapped video. We know that criminals have very clever ways of getting around things. But I can guarantee you that a lot of the situations that I hear about, the scam victims that I talk to every day, never would have happened to them. I never would have met Max Tavita last year. That profile of Steve53 wouldn't have shown up on Bumble if this was actually a regulated thing.
- [09:18]
B
And so what would you like to see happen then in terms of regulation?
- [09:22]
A
I would love to see a change in regulation because I do believe it's the only way we have given the industry and the online dating platforms the chance to put in safety measures that actually protect people as mandatory, not voluntary. And they have chosen not to do that. So for me, the only way is for us to regulate this in the same way that Australia, the Australian government has shown incredible leadership when it comes to the social media age delays for under 16s and age gating on other online content. We have shown incredible leadership in that space and the world is following us. You know, the amount of other nations that are actually putting in those things now that we've done it, I see this as just the next logical step. So I would like to see a regulation that requires online dating app profiles in Australia to be ID verified against some sort of legally enforceable or, you know, government issued id.
- [10:19]
B
There are obviously some complexities around that though. I mean, not everyone supports mandatory ID verification. One of the big concerns is obviously around privacy and data protection. There's not a lot of trust or goodwill in any of these big tech companies and so there's hesitation to provide them with more data. And the risks around that. How do you weigh that up against the safety concerns?
- [10:45]
A
Yeah, it's a very valid concern and I think we should all be thinking about where our data goes. The solution, for example, that Bumble have in place now with a company called Verification, Bumble don't hold that data. You know, it's managed by this third party supplier. We need to think about where our data's going and we hand over our identity for things that are far less important than inviting somebody into our hearts and into our homes. You know, when you go to the chemist to get some pseudoephedrine in your cold and flu tablets. You have to hand over your ID when you get a job, when you sign a lease on an apartment. There are so many examples where we are very, very happy to give over our ID and our data to get what we need done. Yet this example where our safety is at risk is one of those things that doesn't happen.
- [11:34]
B
And Max or Hamish is being released from jail later this week. What do you know about the conditions he'll be under and how concerned are you that he'd do it again?
- [11:44]
A
There are conditions of his parole, so he's not allowed in certain areas. He's not to contact or manage money. Like there's. There's quite a few things, I guess that's not sort of what's most concerning to me. What's most concerning is, is the fact that 10 years on the same thing can still happen and whether it's him or it's somebody else, it actually doesn't matter, you know, and that, and that's the thing that I'm focused on now is how do we, how do we demand better, how do we demand a safer environment, a digital environment for our children, for our friends, our nieces and our nephews? Because unless we do, this is going to keep happening.
- [12:25]
B
Well, Tracey, thank you so much for speaking with me.
- [12:28]
A
Thanks, Ruby, Appreciate it.
- [12:39]
B
Also in the news, Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles says Australia is very concerned after China launched a nuclear capable weapon in the Pacific Ocean. A Chinese submarine launched the long range missile with a dummy warhead as a test it says was part of its annual military training program. Australia was warned about the test, which came just hours after we struck a new defence alliance with Fiji. Marles says he doesn't believe the two things are related. And Anthony Albanese has apologised unequivocally for comments he made about Kylie Minogue on a podcast while playing a game of Shag Marry Date.
- [13:14]
A
Shag Marry Date. Kylie Minogue, Nicole Kidman or Rhonda Burchmore? I've just got married, I'm only six months in, but if it goes tits up, let's just pretend. Oh, Kylie, clearly you'd marry Kylie And Shagga and Data. All of the above.
- [13:30]
B
The comments have been condemned by fellow politicians, including Community Strong MP Zali Steggall and Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson. I'm Ruby Jones, this is 7:00am thanks for listening, Sam.