Scam survival guide: Lessons from victims and their families

According to Scamwatch, Australians have already lost $58,655,415 to investment scams in 2024. These losses were reported by 2,497 people alone. The majority of reports (and the most money lost) were by people aged over 65 (and the vast majority, 75.5%, were male). 

Even if you feel you are financially literate, it's incredibly easy to fall for a scam - perhaps, now more so than ever. 

Welcome to the 21st Century, where fraudsters use technology to create deepfake videos of public figures to endorse investment scams or produce fake news articles that claim to use artificial intelligence or quantum computing to generate exceptional returns for investors. In addition, scammers are also using reputable brand names to try and swindle investors. 

“We know of an Australian man who lost $80,000 in cryptocurrency after seeing a deepfake Elon Musk video interview on social media, clicking the link and registering his details through an online form," ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said.

"He was provided with an account manager and an online dashboard where he could see his investment supposedly making huge returns. But when he tried to withdraw the money – he was locked out of his account.”

So that you can avoid similar losses in the future, Livewire reached out to a victim of a scam, Tracy Hall, and a victim's relative, Ray David, a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Blackwattle Investment Partners. 

In this wire, they openly share their stories, the red flags investors should look out for, and some of the lessons they believe can help investors from falling into a fraudster's trap. 

Tracy Hall: Love, lies and a $317,000 loss 

Tracy met Max Tavita on a dating app in early 2016. Initially, he told her that he was the chief financial officer of a family office, and eventually, over the ensuing 16 months, he convinced her to let him invest her savings and superannuation on her behalf. 

"We went on holidays. He met my family. We were talking about buying a property together in Byron Bay," Tracy says. 

"It wasn't until almost 18 months later, when I woke up one morning to a Crime Stoppers video that had been posted online of him being arrested outside of his Bondi Beach apartment, that I found out that his name was actually Hamish McLaren, and he had defrauded 15 victims out of $7.6 million." 

Looking back, Tracy recalls "invisible" red flags - those that she feels she would have picked up on if it weren't for her rose-coloured glasses at the time. 

For instance, "Max" didn't have many friends, and had no social media or digital footprint. Tracy admits that if she had dropped a photo of "Max" into Google's reverse image search, she would have discovered who he really was. 

"Max Tavita didn't exist until he met me. He had a very, very big digital footprint under his name, Hamish McLaren, or his actual other name, which was Hamish Watson," Tracy says. 

"Max" talked the talk and walked the walk, which is likely how he swindled so many of his victims. 

Tracy recalls hours spent talking about finance and overhearing "Max" talking to people about deals, the price of commodities, elections and the economic impacts. There were Bloomberg monitors on his kitchen dining table. She saw him produce multiple documents and emails every week that he would send to his clients. Of course, these were all fake. 

"It wasn't like he knocked on my door and said, 'Hey, what are you doing with your superannuation? Give it to me to invest.' That conversation didn't happen until everything else had been set in place over the course of the year," Tracy says. 

Tracy first gave "Max" money when he told her he had become privy to some information - an announcement that would happen around the time of the US election. He told her his sister and her husband were going to invest - and suggested that they had encouraged him to speak to Tracy about the "opportunity". 

"He told me he wanted me to be financially independent. And there was an urgency around the date of the US election. I was questioning him, 'Isn't this insider information?' He had an answer for everything. He had spoken to his barrister - there was nothing to worry about," she says. 

"That was probably the only one that was pressured. The rest were death by 1000 cuts. It was just this slow, steady stream of information. When it finally came to it, I thought, of course, he was the best person to invest in my superannuation. Of course, he has my best interests at heart." 

Of course, as we now know, he didn't. 

While there were only 15 victims who lost $7.6 million in the case that sent Hamish to jail, journalist Greg Bearup, who hosted the "Who the hell is Hamish?" podcast, discovered it was more likely to be in the range of $80-100 million that was lost - and not only in Australia, but globally. 

"There were people who spoke to the police who lost $20 million, $7 million, so much money, but who didn't want to testify," Tracy says. 

Hamish McLaren is now up for parole in July 2026. 

As she would come to find out, Tracy's experience is quite rare. Typically, most romance/investment scam victims are ripped off over the internet or the phone. Nevertheless, she has a few pieces of advice that she thinks could help investors avoid being scammed in the future. 

1.  If you have a picture of this person, do a reverse image search and make sure they are who they say they are. 
2. Talk to your friends and family about money. Tracy believes that if she had more conversations with her loved ones about what was going on, someone could have picked up some of the red flags before it was too late. 
3. If this person is imposing a sense of urgency on you, they are likely trying to make you act quickly without thinking. Often, you can protect yourself by thinking rationally, talking to someone else about it, or doing some research online. There is no need to rush. 
4. If you are dealing with a financial adviser, or who you think is a financial adviser, there are websites you can use to check that they have the right licence to provide that advice. Do your own research. 

"I think if we were to have more open, bolder conversations about money and what we were doing and not be so closed about it, we could look out for people convinced they are making the right investment choice. Just talking to someone close to you may save you from being scammed," Tracy says. 

Tracy has since written a book about her experience, which you can check out here. 

Ray David: How a relative was scammed out of $200,000

Ray's relative was duped into signing up for a fraudulent brokerage services business.

"He was close to retirement age at 55 and decided to start DIY share investing shortly after COVID. After researching stocks and sectors on his web browser, social media used his search history based on cookie tracking to start serving up ads on investing services based on their algorithms," Ray says. 

"Some of these ads were being uploaded by organised crime members based offshore and scammers." 

It was through these ads that Ray's relative signed up for a brokerage services organisation, which then obtained his contact details and started calling him over the phone with stock recommendations. 

"Initially, the person on the phone started with recommendations of blue chip ASX stocks. Then he started to migrate to international securities," Ray says. 

Initially, Ray's relative invested $20,000 via a bank transfer to an offshore account (purporting to be the brokerage service firm he had signed up to). When he logged in to the website, he could see his (supposed) holdings. 

"Seeing the gains being made, the person on the phone convinced him to transfer more money over time, adding more securities to his portfolio (of which were non-existent), but displayed on the website under his login. All in all, he ended up transferring approximately $200,000," Ray says. 

However, when Ray's relative tried to withdraw funds, the "broker" wouldn't allow the transfer. He then contacted Ray to look into the account, who quickly realised it didn't have an AFSL and the account number was owned by an offshore entity. 

"When we reported this to ASIC, it was advised that this offshore entity fell outside of ASIC’s jurisdiction. Scamwatch said that given it's offshore, all it could do is list the service/website on its website as a warning to others, and banks couldn’t retrieve the funds once transferred offshore," Ray says. 

"He was very distraught due to embarrassment of failure and lapse of judgement." 

Since this experience in the family, Ray has kept a close eye on social media - and says these scams are still prevalent across Facebook and Instagram.

Unfortunately, thanks to the way social media algorithms work, once you click on one ad, you will likely be served up more. Often, these ads encourage you to join Whatsapp groups, where "dummy" profiles show money being transferred over and successful investments. 

"Once you are in the group, they give you stock recommendations and start messaging you directly to build trust. After you have been on the channel for some time, they send you applications to open up a brokerage account with them, as they purport to specialise in pre-market trading, OTC and pre-IPO investments," Ray says. 

Other channels recommend buying small-cap or micro-cap ASX stocks, which are obviously speculative in nature, which Ray believes are most likely being pumped so the owner of the Whatsapp group can sell into your buying for a profit. 

"Often, when we report these pages to Facebook, they are taken down, but more just pop up," Ray says.  

"We also notified Scamwatch, but there is little information we can provide as we are not aware of who is responsible, other than these ads are continuously being served by Facebook." 

So, what does Ray recommend investors do to avoid these types of scams?

"My recommendation to anyone is to steer clear of private WhatsApp groups and to ignore ads that purport to provide significant investment returns, especially ads using well-known AI-created videos with Australian financial commentators," Ray says. 

"Anyone interested in investing should seek financial advice or speak to a professional that is accredited with an AFSL or is a licenced adviser." 

Websites to check before you invest 

1. Investors can check ASIC’s investor alert list to keep informed about investments that could be fraudulent, a scam or unlicensed. 
2. Investors can visit ASIC’s check before you invest page to see if a company or person is licensed or authorised to offer the investment.
3. Check ASIC’s professional register to see if the licensee is authorised to provide services to retail clients. You can check if a financial adviser is registered at the Money Smart website. Sometimes scammers impersonate licensees, so check you are dealing with the correct entity by verifying contact details on AFCA’s financial firms directory.
4. For more information about how to spot an investment scam, visit ASIC’s Money Smart website or Scamwatch.