Interview with ABC Riverland on Romance Scams

Stephanie Nitschke (Host): Now, locals are being urged to guard our hearts and our bank accounts in the lead up to Valentine’s Day. Scammers will be ramping up and preying on romantics and vulnerable people. Last year, Australians reported over 3000 romance scams, that’s $24 million. So, it does pay to be extra vigilant at the moment. Anna Bligh is the Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Banking Association. Good morning, Anna.

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

Stephanie Nitschke: You too. And we’re talking about romance scams this morning. And you know, in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, and I was just wondering if you could firstly, just define what is a romance scam?

Anna Bligh: Well, you’re right. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and everybody’s mind turns to romance at this time of year. A romance scam is where somebody is tricked into providing money to another person on the basis that that person is in love with them and wants to have a relationship with them. Often, it turns out that the person doesn’t exist. It’s actually some kind of chatbot, or the person is someone vastly different to the image that they’ve put on the screen. They really are preying on people who are looking for love. And, it’s a very low form of behaviour, I think.

Stephanie Nitschke: Definitely. And you know, it’s not just a strange looking email from the Nigerian Prince who wants to give you all his money anymore. There are very sophisticated schemes and scams these days, isn’t there?

Anna Bligh: Absolutely. And many of these criminals, they’re jumping onto the dating apps that are out there. And dating apps are a reality of modern romance, it’s how many people meet their life partner. So, there’s nothing wrong with dating apps, but they are vulnerable to criminals who want to exploit and to scam. So, when you are looking online, it is important to keep your radar up. If the images of a person are flawless and perfect, maybe that’s a question mark. If they are giving you very repetitive answers, they could be a chat bot, not a real person. But most importantly, if they start pressuring you for money with a very emotive story about, say, a sick relative, then that really is a red flag.

Stephanie Nitschke: Like you say, these days we have things like artificial intelligence and deep fakes to contend with. So, you’ve outlined a few of the red flags we should be looking out for. You know, what is some other advice for people just to be able to steer clear of these kinds of scams.

Anna Bligh: As I said, I think the first thing is just when you’re online, when you’re looking at the dating apps, when you’re meeting someone, keep your radar on for as long as you can, before you really decide that this person is real, and someone you might want to get to know better. If, for example, you meet someone on a dating platform, and they want you to move very quickly off that platform onto something like WhatsApp, that is also a red flag. If they want to move you off the dating platform very quickly, that’s something that you should question and not necessarily agree to. We see a lot of examples of people whose relationships get quite emotionally deep online without meeting the person physically. I think a very good piece of advice generally is don’t give your banking details or transfer money to someone that you haven’t physically met and that you can’t verify they are the person you think they are.

Stephanie Nitschke: Yeah, that’s all-good advice. So, we’re speaking with Anna Bligh, she’s the Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Banking Association, and we’re talking about romance scams in the lead up to Valentine’s Day on Friday. And Anna we talked about a lot of these people who are hopeful on these dating apps and perhaps really vulnerable. These kinds of scams can inflict some real trauma, and not, not just financially.

Anna Bligh: Oh, they’re terrible. I think any kind of scam is terrible, it attacks people’s financial wellbeing. But with romance scams, people do often get very emotionally involved. They think they found the love of their life. So, when it all comes tumbling down around them, they find that they’ve not only got a broken bank account, but they’ve got a broken heart. So, it takes a long time to rebuild your life, and which is why it’s very good at the beginning, to keep your radar up. Meet the person physically and see, are they the person in the photo? Are they actually the person you think that you’ve been talking to before you rush in and lose your heart as well as losing your bank account balance?

We know that Australians lost about $24 million to romance scams last year. The biggest financial losses from scams come from dodgy investment scams, but the second biggest is romance scams. So, they are real, the scammer has to trick you into transferring your money to them, and they do that in the case of romance scams, by emotionally entangling you with them. And so, people often also feel really embarrassed that this has happened to them. And I would just say to people, it’s more common than you think. If you start to get suspicious, listen to that inner voice that’s telling you ‘maybe I should be careful here’ and just understand that while, as I said, lots of people find life partners on these dating apps, that doesn’t mean that everybody that you meet is a real person or the person that they say they are. So, it pays to be careful and to be aware that there are sophisticated criminal gangs out there using high tech, sophisticated methods to get to you, to get to your emotions and to get to your bank account. You know, AI is a double-edged sword. AI is used by our banks every single minute of every day to look for unusual transactions, to stop your account being hacked, it’s a very powerful tool in protecting customers, but in the hands of the wrong people, the sorts of criminal gangs that are trying to scam people globally, they can be very, very dangerous, very sophisticated and very hard to spot.

Stephanie Nitschke: Yeah, indeed. And if there’s someone listening who maybe is starting to fear that maybe they have been a victim to this sort of scam, what would you advise them to do?

Anna Bligh: Well, firstly, if they think they might have already lost money to a scam, they should tell their bank as soon as they can. Banks do have the ability, if they get the information soon enough, they can often stop a transfer of money, or they can recover it from the bank that it’s been sent to. So, talk to your bank as soon as you possibly can. But if you’re not sure about the person that you’re communicating with on a dating app, ask some more questions, and then ask to meet them. There’s nothing more powerful than actually verifying that the person you think you’re falling in love with actually exists, and is the person that they say they are.

Stephanie Nitschke: Anna, yeah, we appreciate your time this morning telling us about it. And yeah, I hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Anna Bligh: Thank you, and same to you and your listeners.

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