Scams, Summons & Surveillance

In this episode we cover topics such as:-

1- Scams in Australia;

2- Top 5 tips when giving evidence in court;

3- A real life surveillance story;

Got a question for our podcast or do you need to contact Simon and the Down Under Investigations team? Simply email info@downunderinvestigations.com or call 1300849007 or check out www.downunderinvestigations.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Down Under Investigations the Truth. Our host, Simon, has over 20 years experience in the private investigation industry and he leads the team at down under investigations who pride themselves on their professionalism, integrity, and ability to get results. This podcast will open up the world of private investigations, discussing real life cases, latest news, surveillance, and skip tracing techniques, legal issues and support. Let's jump in and join Simon. Now,

Speaker 2: 0:34

Do you know someone who's been the victim of a scam? Despite the best efforts of our government, the private sector and law enforcement agencies, did you know Australians lost over$2 billion to scams in 2021, which is a record for our country. There's a report which is based on analysis of over 560,000 separate reports, which compiles the data from various sources such as scam watch reports, cyber and major banks, and Money Remitters. Although the total losses reported to various organizations were almost 2 billion, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission a C noted that the actual amount could be more than that due to the lack of victims reporting the scams. The most common types of fraud reported to the a c in 2021, where investment scams, which lost over 701 million, followed by romance scams, which lost 142 million according to the ACCC deputy chair, liar, Rickard scam activity continues to increase, and last year a record number of Australians lost a record amount of money. Scammers are the most opportunistic of all criminals. They poses charities after a natural disaster. Health departments during a pandemic and love interests every day. The true costs of scams is more than a dollar figure, as they also cause serious emotional harm to individuals, families, and businesses. According to the report, women were the victims of the most number of scams in 2021, but men were more likely to lose money than women. In terms of investment scams, men lost more money than women in communities with a diverse cultural and linguistic diversity. The losses were slightly higher for women. People aged 65 and over reported the highest losses and reported losses steadily increased with age. In 2021, scam watch received a record number of reports from Australians who had been experiencing hardship or vulnerability. People with disability were the victim in twice as many reports as those from 2020 and their financial losses also increased by over 100% to 19.6 million. The number of reports about indigenous Australians also increased by 43% from 2020 to 2021. The total number of financial losses reported to scam watch also increased by over 140% cultural and linguistic. Diverse Australians experienced an 88% increase in their losses in 2021 compared to the previous year. Miss Rickard said the increasing number of reports by people experiencing vulnerability is a very worrying trend. Everyone from government to banks to digital PLA platforms needs to do more to address this, the ACCC in particular w, is wanting banks to match, pay information on pay anyone transactions. And this has been shown to have a real impact in countries that have done this. According to the A C'S own research, which has been re presented in the report, scams are becoming more and more prevalent in Australia. Over 90% of the respondents have been exposed to various types of fraud in the past five years, and over 20% have fallen victim. In response to the increasing number of reports, the ACCC works with international and domestic law enforcement agencies as well as major telecommunication providers and banks to disrupt and prevent scams. The Australian federal police's work with international law enforcement agencies resulted in the arrest of the flu bot scam in early 2021. In 2021, the telecommunications industry's new industry code prevented over 300 million scam calls from being made. Despite the various initiatives that have been implemented by the public and private sectors to combat fraud, Miss Rickard noted that there are still gaps in the system that allow scammers to operate successfully. According to scam watch data, the number of financial losses reported to the organization decreased by 60% from 2020 to 2021. There was also a 1% increase in the number of reports about lottery travel and prize scams. However, the number of investment scams reportedly increased by 169% during that year. According to Miss Rickard, the organization has noticed a significant decline in some of the low end and older scams. However, there's been a rise in the more sophisticated white collar fraud such as investment scams. The rise in investment scams is mainly due to the emergence of new apps that allow fraudsters to carry out their ops more easily. The A CS Miss Rick warn Australian should not fall for an investment opportunity that is too good to be true. What do you think about the ability of scammers to infiltrate our system through phones, through internet? It should there be more done? Should we be made more aware? If you want more information about those sorts of things, I'd definitely suggest you check out scam watch.gov.au. It's a website set up by the government where many scams are reported and exposed so you can see if there is a scam going round that you don't fall victim to it. One of the classics these days is where you get a message on your WhatsApp from a supposed family member who's broken their phone and they need money to be sent to them. It's called a high mum scam and that one is, uh, netting lots of, lots of, uh, victims at the moment, unfortunately. Just make sure when someone contacts you out of the blue, whether it's a family member or friend, if they're using a different device, make sure they verify. Make sure you work out for certain that you are talking to the right person and you're not being scammed.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Got a question for Simon and down under investigations, we are running a questions of the month competition. If your question gets answered by Simon, we will send you a prize valued at a hundred dollars. To ask your question, simply use the contact page on our website at www.downunderinvestigations.comoremailpodcastsdownunderinvestigations.com.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Have you ever had to give evidence in a courtroom? Have you found it a daunting experience? Have you been a bit confused, maybe have you felt stressed and worried? That's generally how most people feel about entering a courtroom and speaking to a judge and jury and getting asked questions. Our team regularly give evidence in court and have great results. What we wanna do right now is share our top five tips on giving evidence in a courtroom. Number one, be prepared. You've gotta ask the lawyer who subpoenaed you, what questions you may or you certainly will be asked. And also what you need to bring. Make sure you're there early so you know where the courtroom is and you know who the barristers and lawyers are. They might, might wanna meet with you just before the case and just make sure you are ready to go. Number two, be well presented. That way you appear credible. The way you dress, the way you appear adds a huge level of credibility to the evidence you give. So wear are smart, but comfortable. Clothes be neat and tidy in your appearance. Number three, remember to speak slowly and clearly when in the witness box. Breathe, take your time when answering a question. You can even get in the habit of having a sip of water between questions, but don't get drawn into an argument with a barrister or a lawyer. Remember to take your time, understand and answer. Number four, answer the question asked and tell the truth. Firstly, if you don't understand the question, ask them to repeat or rephrase the question. Not only will that help you understand the question or give you more time to consider your answer and keep your answers to the point and avoid giving information that's beyond the question that's being asked. Don't second guess what they're trying to ask you. Don't think about the next question they may ask you. Just concentrate on the question that's being asked. And number five, when you answer, turn an answer towards the magistrate or the judge or the jury. Think about whoever is deciding the case and answer towards them. Cuz at the end of the day, they are the ones who needs are here and believe the answer you give. Don't get distracted by the body language or demeanor of a barrister or others in the public gallery. Answer towards those who are making the decision in the case. So going through those top five evidence, giving tips, Be prepared, be well presented, speak slowly and clearly answer the question asked and answer towards the magistrate, judge or jury. And you'll do much better when you handle a court case and have to give evidence. We had a great file just recently where our client, a female was married and her partner, her husband was heading out late at night and he'd be gone for five to six hours, a couple of nights a week. And it was always different nights. She wasn't sure what was going on. Now she was at home with the kids when he left, he would give her minimal explanation just saying he had to go out, he'd be back later and she questioned him on it and confronted him and he just gave her a brick wall. He didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to explain. She had no way of following him. Um, she had to stay with her children, which is fair enough as a mother. And so she contacted us and she said, I need to know what he's up to. I need to know if he's up to no good. And, um, I'm concerned, I'm worried. And fair enough, I think anyone in that situation would be. So we put together a surveillance operation for her. We needed to stick within a budget. She was not very, uh, financially well off, so to speak. So we asked her, Look, what's your budget? Let's work with that. And we put together a, an operation within her means so that she could obviously afford it. And we weren't going to be spending exhaustive time on this. We couldn't, uh, commit more than a couple of agents at a time, uh, to follow this gentleman. But we did the job and we followed him. First night, he leaves the house, he drove about 15 minutes, uh, to a warehouse area and he entered a warehouse in this area, uh, parked in their car park, went to the door, had a swipe card for this property, and he went inside. We weren't sure what this property was or what this warehouse was, but there was one other car in the car park when he arrived. There was no signs on the property, there was no details. Uh, there was minimal view inside the property from the road we couldn't really see in and what he was doing and what he was up to. So we did a little bit of research the next day, researched this property, researched what it was all about, and it was a medical facility. It was a testing kind of lab for, uh, medical purposes. And we thought, Well, that's very strange that this gentleman will be going to this, uh, property a couple of nights a week. So we spoke to the client and she agreed, Yeah, let's go ahead a second night, see if he goes to the same place, see what he's doing. And we made arrangements with a nearby building to enter through the back of their property, which had a view of the rear of the property that he'd entered just in case he did go to this same address and we could get a better siding on what he was up to. So we followed him again. He went to the same exact address, parked in the car park, used his swipe card, went inside. The same other car was here at the property as well. So we thought, well, he must be meeting the same person. Uh, must be up to something there. So an agent kept view of the front of the property and another agent went around the back where we had access at agreed access with, uh, neighboring, uh, owner, landlord of a property to be able to enter their property in order to get a view of what was going on inside this facility. And again, it was limited view. There wasn't much you could see there wasn't much going on at the back. The back was just, you know, a wire fence and, and a couple of windows a roller door. There wasn't a lot that you could see. And again, it was that locked private facility that this gentleman was in. Uh, but we had determined it was a medical lab and it was for testing purposes. So around the back of the property, what we could see was this gentleman had a mop in his hand at one point, just a brief glimpse of him carrying a mop and a mop bucket. And we thought, that's a bit strange. What's this guy up to? Um, that's all we could see. That's all we viewed. And it was only a brief second that we saw him carrying this mop and mop bucket. So we caught up with the client the next day, told her, Look, this is where he is going. This is the details of the property. This is what we've seen him do. And she decided that she wanted to not confront him in a, in a rude or mean kind of way, but just ask him a few questions. He ended up divulging to her when they caught up and talked about this matter that he had taken on a part-time cleaning contract. And he was working with another gentleman cleaning this facility, which was a medical facility. And she then thought to herself, Well, that's probably why he's been coming home. And I could smell bleach on, on his clothes or on his shoes. There was some sort of chemical that he came home smelling like. So he did tell her that he had been saving money so that they could go on a holiday and he wanted to take her away for their 10 year wedding anniversary. And that's exactly why he was working at this property and he was good to his word. He did book the holiday. So there was nothing for her to be concerned about. Maybe just his secretive behavior had triggered her and made her feel a bit suspicious. But at the end of the day, it was all legitimate and it was all for a good purpose and that was a good outcome for her. She had peace of mind. Would've been nice if she told him from the start, then, uh, they wouldn't have needed to involve us, but at least she now had that peace of mind as to what was actually going on.

Speaker 1: 15:25

We would love if you would review and subscribe to this podcast and also check out our social media. If you would like to get in touch with Simon and the down under investigation team for any reason, please check out our website at www.downunderinvestigations.comorcallonethreehundredeightfournineohsevenoremailinfodownunderinvestigations.com. Thanks for listening.