FRAUD – AUSTRALIA

Qantas hack sparks scam high alert

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Original article by Robyn Ironside, Jared Lynch
The Australian – Page: 15 : 16-Jul-25

Qantas recently advised that a ‘potential’ cyber criminal has made contact with the airline in the wake of the cyber attack on a customer service platform in Manila. Qantas has indicated that it has yet to receive a ransom demand, while no personal data of the 5.7 million affected customers has been released on the ‘dark web’ to date. Satnam Narang from US-based cybersecurity firm Tenable warns that ‘social engineering’ scams may be the biggest risk to Qantas customers whose data has been compromised. He says given that phone numbers were exposed in the hack, affected customers may be targeted with SMS-based scams.

CORPORATES
QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED – ASX QAN, TENABLE NETWORK SECURITY INCORPORATED

Labor vows to force banks to compensate Australians tricked out of money by scammers

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Original article by Karen Middleton
The Guardian Australia – Page: Online : 31-Jul-24

The federal government intends to pursue further reforms aimed at protecting consumers from scams. Assistant treasurer Stephen Jones will note in a National Press Club on Wednesday that the government’s crackdown helped to reduce losses from scams to $2.74bn in 2023, compared with $3bn in 2022. Jones will add that losses due to social media-based scams rose by 17 per cent in 2023, and he will argue that the ‘social licence’ of digital platforms requires them to do more to protect their users from fraudsters. Jones will also flag reforms that will require banks to compensate customers for losses incurred due to scams.

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AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB (AUSTRALIA)

Health department records show some pathology companies rorted Medicare during COVID pandemic, expert says

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Original article by Alison Branley
abc.net.au – Page: Online : 16-Jul-24

Documents obtained under freedom of information laws have revealed that some pathology companies rorted Medicare during the pandemic, with one doctor claiming 21,000 tests in a single day. The documents also reveal cases where pathology companies were operating state-government funded pop-up and drive-through testing clinics, but billing Medicare; the federal government was already half-funding the state centres under a national partnership agreement. Health economist Professor Stephen Duckett says the documents show there was "systematic rorting on a very large scale", which reflects very badly on the pathology sector.

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AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF HUMAN SERVICES. MEDICARE AUSTRALIA

Google fails to sign on to scams fight

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Original article by David Ross
The Australian – Page: 17 : 14-Jun-24

Meta has signed up to an intelligence-sharing agreement aimed at combatting financial scams and fraud via the sharing of information between social media platforms and market participants. However, Google is yet to sign up to the agreement, nor have X or TikTok, and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones has called them to do so. He says that if social media platforms want to operate in Australia that they must be part of the "team" when it comes to combatting scams, although Google claims it was not approached to join the intelligence-sharing agreement.

CORPORATES
META PLATFORMS INCORPORATED, GOOGLE AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, X CORPORATION, TIKTOK, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY

Up to 150 Australian tax office staff investigated over $2bn social media scam

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Original article by
The Guardian Australia – Page: Online : 14-Feb-24

The Australian Taxation Office has recovered more than $2bn via Operation Protego, which was set to investigate fraudulent claims for goods and services tax refunds. An additional $2.7bn in GST refunds was stopped just before payment was made. An auditor-general’s report has revealed that 57,000 people were involved in the scam, including about 150 employees of the ATO. There had been more than 100 arrests and 16 convictions over the same as of August 2023.

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AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE

Scams help drive unsustainable increase in complaints about banks, finance firms to AFCA

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Original article by Loretta Florance, Leonie Thorne
abc.net.au – Page: Online : 9-Jan-24

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority has advised that it received over 100,000 complaints in 2023, the most in its five-year history. 8,987 related to scams, up from 4,611 in 2022, and AFCA CEO David Locke says he hopes that 2024 will be the year that anti-scam initiatives by industry and government finally disrupt what he contends is a "serious and organised crime". AFCA’s dispute resolution scheme is intended to be a last resort for consumers, if they cannot get a solution by dealing directly with their bank, but Locke claims the volume of complaints escalated to AFCA is increasing at an "unsustainable rate", and that financial service firms need to do a better job of resolving customer complaints.

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AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL COMPLAINTS AUTHORITY

NAB blocks high-risk crypto exchanges

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Original article by Lucas Baird
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 17 : 17-Jul-23

The National Australia Bank has announced it will block payments to certain high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges as from 17 July, although NAB head of fraud Chris Sheehan has declined to name which exchanges are being targeted. The NAB’s action is the latest in a series of similar crackdowns by the major banks, who are finding that scammed money is increasingly being diverted into cryptocurrency, making it almost impossible to recover for scam victims. Asked if the ban includes Binance, Sheehan replied that "our approach is going to be consistent with the rest of the industry".

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NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED – ASX NAB, BINANCE

Andrew Forrest sues Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook over scam ads

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Original article by Danielle Le Messurier
The West Australian – Page: Online : 3-Feb-22

Fortescue Metals Group founder Andrew Forrest has filed criminal charges against social media giant Facebook in the Magistrates Court of Western Australia. Forrest alleges that Facebook has been "criminally reckless" in failing to take sufficient action to block fake advertisements that use his name and image to promote cryptocurrency scams on its platforms. Forrest has also accused Facebook of breaching Australia’s money-laundering laws. Forrest previously filed a US civil case against Facebook in September 2021.

CORPORATES
FORTESCUE METALS GROUP LIMITED – ASX FMG, FACEBOOK, META PLATFORMS INCORPORATED, MAGISTRATES COURT OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Forrest’s legal action over Facebook crypto scams

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Original article by John Rolfe
The Daily Telegraph – Page: Online : 22-Dec-21

Facebook is under scrutiny by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for allowing scammers to place fake advertisements on its digital platforms. The ads feature ‘endorsements’ by high-profile individuals such as Andrew Forrest and Dick Smith to promote scams that have cost some Australians their life savings. Forrest has launched his own legal action against Facebook for allowing his name and image to be used in ads that promote online scams. He first raised concern about the practice in April 2019, and personally wrote to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about the issue in November of that year.

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FACEBOOK INCORPORATED, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION

Early super releases pass the $10b mark

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Original article by Joanna Mather, Tom McIlroy, Michael Roddan
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 12 : 8-May-20

The federal government has advised that 1.2 million people have now applied to withdraw a total of $10.2bn from their superannuation fund via its early access scheme. Treasury had forecast that about $27bn in total will be withdrawn by people who have experienced financial hardship due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police have executed five search warrants as part of an investigation into allegations that fraudsters are taking advantage of the scheme. Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan has told a Senate inquiry that about $120,000 has been stolen from super funds by fraudsters.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY