Tech Giants to pay victims- TikTok fraud costs taxpayer $1.2bn

PwC’s agent Kevin Burrowes revealed as a $4m man

When PwC International drafted in Kevin Burrowes to quarantine its Antipodean crisis to these shores, it didn’t expect him to work for free. Kevin’s life was sweet in Singapore. Warmer weather, chicken rice lunch at his hawker local. Why give that all up for this excruciating assignment?

We should have known the global operation was also paying him the whole time. Though this fact has been carefully kept from notice, until last week’s partners meeting, when it came up in the context of how the firm would answer even more parliamentary questions.

Democracy is about holding power to account and in 2024 also holding tsunami of scammers to account …

Here’s an example of how scammers create a sense of urgency to get you to act without checking the message is real. Don’t tap links in text messages. Contact the organisation using details you find on their official website or through their app. https://bit.ly/4eDy8wa

Scammers fool still many people - too good to be true?

ATO restructures Private Wealth division after Protego fraud hit

Are your neighbours allowed to use surveillance cameras?

The Australian Tax Office has paid out more than $1.2billion in fraudulent GST claims after the deceitful scheme was promoted on TikTok.

The ATO believes that at least 56,000 perpetrators have taken part in the fraud, with the organisation launching Operation Protego in April 2022 to crack down on the scam after it was initially uncovered in 2021 by Westpac and other banks.

The sham was promoted on social media platform TikTok, with financial influencers using it as a way to get a “loan” from the government.

TikTok fraud costs taxpayer $1.2bn

During the COVID pandemic, Hayley Elizabeth Arroyo used the names of more than 20 people - as well as her own - to falsely claim payments intended to help those who had to isolate.

Woman sentenced for fleecing nearly $20k in COVID support payments

The man, 31, was charged following an international investigation into a website selling fraud-enabling technology responsible for more than $1 million being stolen from Australian victims.

AFP inquiries identified a Melbourne man had used fraudulent driver licences – with the names and details of real victims alongside his own image – to establish accounts with two online cryptocurrency platforms.

Boronia man sentenced for cyber-enabled identity theft offences

ASIC has banned Robert Payne, managing director of the Guildford group of companies, from providing financial services for four years.

Payne, from Brighton, Victoria, is also prohibited from performing any function in or controlling a financial services business during this period.

Payne

Revelations of foreign interference in the UK election, uncovered by the ABC, have been described as "highly alarming" by the Conservative Party, which will be writing to the Cabinet Office seeking urgent advice about how to combat it.

Ahead of the UK elections, the ABC has been monitoring five coordinated Facebook pages which have been spreading Kremlin talking points, with some posting in support of Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK party — a key challenger to the Conservatives in the July 4 poll.

Tories 'highly alarmed' by network of pro-Russian Facebook pages interfering in UK election

Arrogant’ tech companies must ‘fess up’ to harm done to children by social media, Albanese says

Michael Hudson: 18th Century Writers Understand Effects of War Debt Better Than IMF

Michael Hudson explains how the IMF’s view of war debt is dangerously misguided and older economic thinkers had much better take.

Trump wins the debate. Is this the end of the American Century? 

by Michael Pascoe | Jun 29, 2024

Joe Biden blew Friday’s presidential debate, leaving the Democratic Party despairing. November 5 now looms as the date to mark the end of the American Century.

Calm Down — Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World. “So don’t even worry about it.”

Labour plans to force tech giants to compensate online fraud victims

Proposal follows controversial UK rules that place the burden on banks

Much of the purchase fraud comes from false advertisements made on social media platforms

Labour has drafted plans to make tech companies liable to reimburse victims of online fraud, in a departure from controversial rules that place the burden on banks and have sparked a backlash from the financial sector.

The opposition party, which is on course to win the UK general election on July 4, criticised “big tech companies” who “contribute very little” to tackling online fraud or compensating victims, according to a document seen by the Financial Times.

The paper addressed the issue of authorised push payment (APP) fraud where victims are tricked into sending money to fraudsters from their bank accounts. Britons lost £460mn to APP fraud last year, according to trade body UK Finance, 70 per cent of which involved ordered goods that never materialise.

“Britain’s banks rightly believe it is both unfair and unsustainable that they should be expected to shoulder so much of the burden of trying to tackle APP fraud and reimburse victims, while the big tech companies on whose platforms this fraud takes place, contribute very little to either effort,” the Labour document said.

“It is clear that a new approach is required . . . The big tech companies who provide the platforms on which this fraud takes place must take their proper share of the responsibility for tackling APP fraud and reimbursing victims.”

Asked about the plan, the party said: “Labour is committed to tackling online fraud, working with technology companies to do so. This draft paper is not policy but was produced to help develop options for tackling the issue.”

The document outlined a proposal under which banks would still have to refund fraud victims but could later recoup some money from tech companies. Banks and payment companies would regularly submit evidence to an oversight body, which would determine how much tech companies should contribute.

Other measures in the document included giving statutory footing to the Online Fraud Charter, a 2023 voluntary agreement to prevent fraud signed by major tech groups including Facebook, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Although banks are responsible for processing payments, much of purchase fraud comes from false advertisements made on social media platforms including Facebook Marketplace and Instagram, according to Lloyds Banking Group and TSB.

Banks have argued that social media companies should be quicker to detect and take down those fraudulent ads.

Labour is also considering expanding the Economic Crime Act to create the offence of failure by a tech company to prevent fraud on their platform, according to the document.

The plan would mark a shift from the independent Payment System Regulator’s decision to force banks to reimburse fraud victims for claims worth up to £415,000 from October. The PSR’s approach has sparked a backlash from banks and the Conservative government. 

Tory City minister Bim Afolami told the FT in May there were “significant problems” with the rules after representatives of the payments industry complained that smaller fintech businesses would not be able to withstand the costly change. The head of the PSR stepped downfrom the regulator the following week.

Banks have argued that making the tech sector contribute to those costs would give them an incentive to stop fraud from flourishing in the first place. About eight in 10 fraud starts online, according to UK Finance.

Trade body UK Finance has also hit out at the PSR rules, saying they risked emboldening fraudsters to pose as victims to claim compensation money.

The PSR has since appointed David Geale, the FCA’s former director of retail banking, as interim managing director. The regulator has vowed to implement the controversial rules as planned.

Labour said: “We will develop a strategy in government working with all stakeholders to tackle the issue.”

Antony Walker, deputy chief executive of trade body TechUK, which represents companies including Google and Amazon, said: “Tech companies have implemented numerous sophisticated measures to tackle online fraud and are actively delivering on the commitments in the Online Fraud Charter.

“The nature of online fraud is constantly evolving and tech companies remain committed to working with all partners involved in fighting this criminal activity, including the next government.”

Google, Meta, Instagram, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok have also collectively donated $1mn worth of advertising to a national anti-fraud campaign.