Full House at Long Jetty Scams Forum

Over 100 people attended a local Scams Awareness forum hosted by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones and Member for Dobell Emma McBride at Long Jetty Over 50s this afternoon.

Today’s forum focused on residents learning how to protect themselves against scammers, how to recognise scams and what to do if they’ve been scammed.

According to IDCare, residents across the Dobell electorate have lost over $1.5 million in scams in 2023 alone, and 14 locals have contacted IDCare just this week.

Almost everyone in the room at today’s event raised their hand when asked if they had received a scam call, text or email in the past month. This is why the Government has made fighting scammers a priority.

The Government recently announced a $86.5 million package to tackle scams and online fraud, headlined by the establishment of a cutting-edge National Anti-Scams Centre (NASC) which began operations on 1 July.

The NASC is the Government’s primary weapon to detect, disrupt and deter scammers and tackle online fraud. In a world-leading partnership between government agencies, banks, telcos and digital platforms, the NASC will:

• use cutting-edge technology to share intelligence across Government and with authorised industry participants to interrupt scams in real time;
• combine the expertise of Government and the private sector to disrupt scams and;
• raise consumer awareness on the risk of scams and how to avoid them.

With scammers targeting the most vulnerable Australians and scams becoming more sophisticated, it is more important than ever that we get out to local communities to raise awareness and educate Australians about scam prevention.

Australians who are aware, alert and educated to the risk of scams will make Australia a harder target for scammers.