FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (00:05)

Tracy, power of women, what does that mean to you?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (00:10)

When I hear the word women, I think about a collective, not just one. And I think women are very powerful together. So for me it’s about how we come together and use that all of that to, you know, create the change that we want.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (00:25)

I think that is exemplified by exactly why we’re sitting here today. It was Catherine Fitzpatrick and the wonderful work that she’s doing who introduced the two of us. So I think t to y to your point, the collective of women is such a powerful thing.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (00:40)

Yes, I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw that question because I thought, you know, how did I get here? And it was because somebody had advocated for me and and it was Catherine and I’m very grateful for that.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (00:53)

As am I. Welcome to the Power Of Women Podcast. I’m Di Gillett and most podcasts tell you what’s possible. This one tells you what it took to get there. In every conversation I delve further to remind you you are not alone, and to back something I believe in fiercely that women supporting women is not just a sentiment. It’s the decision we make every single day. Let’s get into it.

 

Today’s conversation is about trust betrayal and the business of fraud prevention. And the woman who understands this better than most is Tracy Hall. Tracy encountered Max Tavita in 2016, who we now know by his real name, Hamish McLaren. McLaren is one of Australia’s most prolific conmen.

 

15 Australian victims and an estimated 7.6 million in losses locally. And when investigators followed the thread globally, that number climbed somewhere nearer to a hundred million. He cost Tracy $317,000. Today Tracy is a global educator, author, keynote speaker, and an advocate traveling the world to ensure what happened to her happens to fewer people.

 

She has turned the worst chapter of her for life into a career that is genuinely protecting others. Joining me from Sydney in Australia, TRACY HALL welcome to the POWER OF WOMEN Podcast.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (02:37)

Thanks, Di It’s so nice to be here.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (02:40)

Tracy, before we get started with what happened in 2016 I want to start with who you were before all of this hit the fan.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (02:51)

Yes, well it was twenty sixteen. I had just turned forty and I was working for eBay. I had a pretty big marketing executive role, running a big team, I was dealing with international colleagues, I was running campaigns, I was looking after a big budget, I had built a pretty pretty successful career at this stage and I had you know, a five year old at home.

 

I was single parenting at the time. I was busy. but I was very much engrossed in my career, what I was doing there and and looking forward to kind of the second half of my life, I guess you could say.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (03:31)

Mm-hmm. And you separated from your husband in 2015. You turned 40 the following year. Online dating’s something that interests me, and I know I dabbled in it briefly with a couple of girlfriends not for the dating purposes but in in fact setting up an online offline dating service with a whole lot of probity issues in place. But

 

Can you tell me where were you emotionally when you decided to try online dating?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (04:07)

Optimistic and I was curious. I guess when I had met my husband and become engaged and married, dating apps didn’t exist, so it was very new to me. So that’s where the curiosity came from. I was pretty clear at the time that I wasn’t looking for another husband. I didn’t want to be swept off my feet. I was in my early 40s at this stage, so I was pretty resigned to the fact that I wasn’t gonna have any more children.

 

So it was really about meeting somebody for me that had similar values and interests, somebody who I could spend some time with on weekends and just that companionship that I guess I was missing. and I think that’s a very normal human emotion is is to want to connect and and and find that love and connection with somebody else. So I think it was all of those things. I was pretty realistic about it. I knew that, or I’d heard stories that things

 

were interesting on the dating app. So I went in with a level of pragmatism, I guess you could say. And sometimes I met people that I thought, you know what, I’m not gonna end up in a relationship with this person, but they’re really good company. They’re very interesting. And, you know, it’s harder to meet people when you get older. And, you know, when you’re working hard and you’re single parenting. It is kind of difficult to meet new people. So I sort of went in at like that too. I thought, you know what?

 

If I just meet some interesting people along the way, then that’s a win as well as I was rebuilding my confidence to get back out into that world. So they were all the things I was I was feeling at the time and and I think that’s what I went into it with, an open mind.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (05:47)

And your point about it’s much harder to meet people when you’re older. I I was out at a at the Fran Lebowitz concert this week and I actually introduced two of my girlfriends who are over sixty who don’t know each other. Turns out they live down the road from each other. They both walk their dogs in the same dog park on a on a daily basis.

 

And they’re gonna reconnect and and do that. But I don’t think those opportunities, you know, heterosexually or romantically are easily found as we get older. So something like that really gives me joy.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (06:25)

It does. You know one thing I realized when I became single at forty and separated from my husband was I stopped being invited to weekend barbecues and dinners and things like that and I’ve heard

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (06:40)

A million

 

reasons why we could delve into what’s behind it.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (06:43)

Yeah,

 

and I and I’ve never really thought too much about it, but I know it’s a thing. And I’m not you know, I I don’t hold any, you know, feelings towards people who do that, but it was very it was very it was a very stark realisation to me at the time that I was no longer invited to these things where I would interact and meet with other people. And so you do have to take things into your own into your own hands and and find ways to meet. And unfortunately dating outs was where it was at.

 

Back in twenty sixteen.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (07:13)

Yeah. So tell me about Max, not not Hamish McLaren, but but Max Tavita. How did he present himself to you?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (07:21)

He presented himself as a finance executive, so he said he was a chief financial officer, and an investment officer for a family trust and he worked for a company. He spoke to me about all of the the families that he was investing money for, and that was his professional line of work. He had told me all about what he had done in New York, he’d probab he told me he had been working overseas for many, many years, sixteen years.

 

in the finance world and told me many, many stories and examples of that. And then personally he presented himself as a really I guess worldly but down to earth Aussie guy. You know, he loved running, he loved surfing. He grew up on the beaches of Sydney, in the same kind of era as me in the late seventies, early eighties. So we had a lot of kind of cultural references

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (08:16)

Sounds

 

so profitable. Sounds so real.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (08:19)

It it felt it felt very real, everything lined up and you know, he was he was very down to he was really funny, you know, he had a great sense of humor, there was good banter, and you know, that that was appealing to me and and we got along really well.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (08:36)

Sociopaths seem to be entertaining until until they turn. Until they’re not. Mm-hmm. So do you remember the day that you found out the truth and and and how far into this relationship was that?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (08:52)

The day I found out the truth, we were about 16 months into the relationship. there are parts of that day that I remember like it was yesterday, and there are parts of that day that feel very blurry to me, probably because of the shock and and what happened. But the parts I remember were receiving a link from a girlfriend, wa which essentially was the crime stopper’s footage of him being arrested. And that is

 

etched into my memory because I had a visceral reaction to seeing him on my phone being led away by police with his face blurred out and the information that that went alongside that article online were things that I could not reconcile within my brain. Bondai businessman 47 superannuation fraud. Now to me he wasn’t a businessman. He had a job with a with a company. In my mind he was 42.

 

Because that is what he told me. And superannuation fraud. I thought, no, they’ve got it wrong. You know, and so that was a very, very surreal moment where my stomach dropped, I couldn’t feel my legs, my arms went tingly. And then it sort of snowballed into really trying to figure out what had actually happened. And there were many phone calls, text messages, I had to go and deal with the police. I received a message from his brother in law that said,

 

Call me back on this number urgently, Chris. And in brackets, he wrote Hamish’s brother-in-law. And that is the first time I’d seen his real name because no one would tell me what his real name was. And so it said Hamish’s brother-in-law, and I called him straight away and I said, Chris, who the fuck is Hamish? Who is Max Tavita? Like it was all just so messy in my brain and it was so discombobulating. And I felt like I was in a parallel universe. It was the most surreal thing. And then that sort of

 

kicked off many conversations with detectives. I spent the majority of the afternoon that day with the detectives, talking to them and and figuring out what I needed to do next. And then of course the news reports came. A bunch of my girlfriends came over and we watched it play out on the news and it was just it it was just sickening to see what was happening and then everything just sort of fell apart after that.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (11:16)

Wow. So fifteen victims in Australia, a sixteen year sentence as I understand it, with with losses that extended beyond Australia and and and potentially up to a hundred million plus. When when you start mapping the full scale of what what Hamish McLaren did, what does that reveal about how these people operate and and how they can keep operating be

 

For anybody sees that red flag and calls time on it.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (11:49)

I think it’s safe to say that these people are professionals. In many cases they’ve been doing it for many, many years. And when you do something enough times over a longer period or or a long period of time, you do get very good at it. It’s very calculated. It’s meticulous. He knew exactly what he was doing. And you know, he weaponized trust, he weaponized emotion. He was incredibly sophisticated at working out

 

People’s soft spots, I would say, or the chinks in their armour, the things that they needed in their life that he could fill that and extract money from them at the same time was what he focused on, me double down. And so he was very, very good at being a chameleon. And what I mean by that is for me his name was Max Tabita. He was forty one, he was a chief investment officer for a family office, and that was his character, and this was the movie that I was in.

 

But for other victims and what I know is that for for for one victim he was a barrister. For another victim he was a triathlete. For another victim, Lisa Ho, who is a very familiar name to us, Australian fashion designer, he was a business strategist.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (13:04)

Holding that lie and and and having a unique story in each scenario is very difficult to do, I would have imagined.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (13:13)

I mean on some level incredibly intelligent, not to give him too much credit, but I don’t know about you, Di, but I I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, you know?

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (13:24)

Like

 

hold multiple multiple lies. Let me tell you, it gets worse as you get older.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (13:31)

yeah. god. I need to do more brain exercises. but you know, he he just there was nothing that slipped. Everything matched, every story that he’d referenced in the past, every detail, every name, every number, every everything just matched. And so he never

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (13:48)

Guts

 

were churning with the pressure of that. I hope it ate him up inside.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (13:53)

Do you what’s interesting is that I I’ve never met anyone that slept so soundly. His head would hit the pillow and within two minutes he’d be asleep and he did not move until four o’clock the next morning.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (14:00)

my god.

 

Maybe that was just exhaustion from holding the line.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (14:10)

Or maybe he doesn’t have a conscience. I don’t know. I think the other thing about the reason these types of characters are so successful is because they know the system. They know where the gaps in the system are, they know how to manipulate and weaponize the system. And they also know and understand that fraud is very, very difficult to prosecute.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (14:31)

And they’ve made a career of it, Tracy. That’s the that’s the thing, isn’t it? But

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (14:35)

That’s it. And and they know that, you know, if they’ve stolen all the money that somebody has and it’s a it’s not considered a criminal offence and in most cases if you take these issues to law enforcement, they will say this is a civil matter, go get a lawyer and go take it through the civil courts. Now when you’ve lost your life savings, you don’t have the money to do that.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (14:57)

Mm. And the mere fact that it’s called a criminal the it’s a civil matter and not a criminal matter is a is a point we might delve into further ’cause that’s that’s problematic right there.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (15:09)

Very difficult to prove. I’m lucky in in my case that there was a detective that took on a case that landed on his desk, which was not my because of course I didn’t know what was going on when he was arrested. It was another complaint and he looked into it, he looked further, and he knew that it was something big and he essentially got permission to go and investigate it, and he did that for six months. And over that six months is when

 

Most of my money went to Hamish and he got enough evidence to know that if they arrested him, he would be bail refused and he would get a significant sentence. So that was just the tenacity of that one detective that did that. If I had got to a point where I realized I was being defrauded, I’m I’m sure that maybe the response I would have got was it’s a civil case. You know, you have freely given him, your boyfriend, that money. Go and go and get a lawyer.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (16:06)

Mm.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (16:10)

Would have

 

I’m very lucky. I’m very lucky.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (16:12)

Yeah. Yeah. So what I’m interested in I th and and I and I sit here think I’m listening to the story. You’re you’re a a business woman, a c a a senior executive, you’ve worked in in tech, you’re you’re you’re savvy about this stuff. And I and I believe I’m tech savvy, but I have to say the one thing that keeps me awake at night is the fear of clicking on that wrong wrong link and you financially exposed or

 

Or identity exposed. Most people listening believe it’ll never happen to them. Why is that dangerous?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (16:52)

I think with most things in life we don’t think that these terrible things will ever apply to us. You know, I think we are as a group of humans probably confidently and over optimistically apathetic. I would say. And we all like to think that we’re smarter than that, we’re better than that, that would never happen to me. And if I’m really honest, I I thought exactly the same thing.

 

I never thought this would be me. I’ve travelled the world. I’ve come from a good family. I’ve had a stellar education. I’ve had an incredible career. I have amazing friends. I you know, I I’ve lived a life. And you hear stories like this and you think the people that the media like to portray are quite stereotyped, you know, they’re uneducated, lonely, middle aged women that are desperate for love, you know, even even the headlines that you see. And so I’ve

 

see those stories and think, well that’s not who I am. So of course that would never happen to me. And this is unfortunately the the overoptimistic nature we have of our own ability to spot these things or to protect ourselves. And the reality is that this can happen to anyone. Because you don’t have to be uneducated, lonely, you know, it’s none of those things. In fact, intelligence has nothing to do

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (18:16)

I

 

mean.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (18:18)

Yeah, there’s an incredible statistic that says I think it was sixty four percent of globally of people who were victims of scams or fraud were tertiary educated. So it actually has nothing to do with intelligence. It has everything to do with how sophisticated these criminals are, the technology that they’re using, and these moments of vulnerability that we all have in our lives in any given week that they prey on and that they weaponize.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (18:46)

Time.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (18:47)

And I think this is a thing, we need to change the conversation. What is the criminal doing as opposed to what did the vict where was the victim at in their life when this happened to them? Yeah. You know?

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (18:57)

Because that day could be any any day amongst a a raft of of days where it couldn’t happen. hence to your point, we’re focusing on the wrong thing. We’re we need to focus on on what they’re doing. So with that in mind, you you’ve spoken about the the psychological architecture of intimate fraud. And in in our efforts to turn this into some level of education to

 

to help preventing it from happening to others. Can you can you walk us through your understanding of what sophisticated scammers target to build your trust? Step and I and I would imagine it’s a step by step process.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (19:40)

It is. It does generally happen slowly and methodically and with calculation. There’s manipulation. In most cases, most stories we hear, it starts small. So they’ll build your trust by by something small and it may not even be money. They may even give you money or give you a gift. And this is all about building a relationship. And once that connection and that bond is formed, you are essentially under a spell, a spell of love.

 

In the case of a romance fraud. There are many different types of fraud, of course, but if we’re talking about this one. But if we talk more broadly, the way I like to explain sort of the psychological aspects of scams and fraud, which are the things that stay consistent regardless of whether it’s an investment scam or a romance scam or an Australia Post scam, what happens is the scammer will try and get you into a heightened emotional state. And in that heightened emotional state, you actually

 

Have less access to your logical and rational thinking. We all know this to be true. And those heightened states are things like love, is a romance fraud, excitement, hope, or love, hope, excitement, fear. Fear is the other one. So when you hear about the hey mum scam, I’ve lost my phone, that’s eliciting a fear, or you haven’t paid your bill, or the Australian federal police is calling and asking you, that elicits fear. And once you’re in this heightened emotional state, you actually you’re

 

Your logical brain is offline. What they then do is they’ll apply some urgency. It’s always urgent. Even if somebody has been grooming you for months or years, when it comes to extracting money or your identity or data, it’s always urgent. Something’s happened. We’ve got to do this quickly. We have to act on this now. And again, that’s a tactic to get you to do something in haste to not allow you to slow down and engage your rational thinking. Then they’ll play on things like biases.

 

And in my case, I had many biases going on. I have an optimism bias, which I told you I was feeling very optimistic when I went into the online dating world. And I’m naturally optimistic. If somebody tells me something, I I think the best of them, I believe what they say. I don’t question things as much as maybe somebody who’s more cynical would. I had a similarity bias. And similarity bias is the thing that says, if someone looks like you,

 

They sounds like they sound like you, they have similar values and interests to you, you are more likely to trust, believe them and fall in love with them.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (22:07)

I imagine that’s probably one of the trickiest ones to to identify and and and pluck out ’cause that’s a that’s a powerful point of connection.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (22:19)

It is. And what these nefarious characters do is that they use a technique called mirroring to build that similarity bias. So even if it’s not true, they pretend to be, you know, have the same values and thoughts as you, have the same outlook on life. And certainly Hamish did this with me. He you know, there were certain parts of it that were authentic. You know, he loved running, he loved surfing, he loved being at the beach. But all he had to do was listen to the things I was saying about what did I what I wanted for my future, how I wanted my next relationship to play out.

 

what my desires were, my what my fears were, and he just mirrored those things back to me to make me feel like, my God, I found my soulmate. I found my person. And so there are lots of biases that that get tapped into. Authority bias is one. In in Hamish’s case, he presented himself as a chief financial officer that spoke about the financial markets all the time. But you might get a phone call from who you believe to be the ATO.

 

Now that is authority bias because we are very, very abiding citizens here in Australia and generally around the world we are. If someone from a government authority calls you and says you need to do something quickly, most people will do it. And so there are the biases, and then finally we have what we spoke about before we have vulnerability. And vulnerability is not just lonely people looking for love on the internet. Vulnerability could be you didn’t sleep well last night. It could be you’ve got jet lag. It could be you’ve got

 

15 things going on at once and you’re trying to do everything really quickly. You know, it it could be a number of things. Maybe you’ve had a big night and you’re hung over. Maybe you’ve had a baby. It just there are so many different vulnerabilities that we all have at any given point in our day or week or month. And all it takes is for someone to spot that vulnerability and weaponize it, and they’re in. And that’s this is sort of the psychological anatomy of the scam. So four elements that are present in

 

every scam that I hear about. And I think it’s the recognition of those things and understanding that that is going to help protect us more in the future, more so than understanding what the Australia Post scam looks like or the Hey Mum scam, because they’ll just change and evolve over time.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (24:29)

So so given this individual weaponised trust in your world, can I can I ask what is your relationship with trust now?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (24:41)

It’s complicated because I would say that I was a person who used to trust blindly because of my optimism bias, because I had never encountered a man like Hamish, because I believe the best in people, because I default to truth and I assume honesty. But my experience with Hamish has changed that. And whilst I work very hard at not being cynical.

 

I’m definitely more skeptical now. I see the world I see the world differently. And this is my job now. So I spend all day, every day researching these things. And so I see and hear things that I probably wouldn’t ordinarily. But, you know, I I work hard at maintaining a level of trust in my own intuition. I’ve had to build that up over time because certainly my intuition did not kick in when I met Hamish because he was a professional.

 

So I’ve had to work very, very hard at trying to rebuild a connection with that. But if I’m honest, Di this is something that I work very hard at almost every single day. Because I do I never want this experience to make me cynical and cantankerous and and just viewing the world in a negative way because that’s not my natural personality, but it certainly has changed the way that I look at at the world.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (26:02)

Yeah, I have no doubt. Thank you for sharing that, Tracy. One thing we touched on earlier, you you’ve talked you touched on it, and I think it’s really important is victims of financial crime are not treated in the same way as victims of physical crime. Why in hell not?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (26:25)

I actually don’t know and this has been a surprise to me as well. And in in a lot of cases when when these things happen, you don’t know until you go through the system. You know, because why would you? And this became very, very clear to me recently. I was working with victim services because Hamish is coming up to his parole.

 

And part of that as a victim, you are entitled to write a letter and ask for some core conditions. And I w as I was doing that, I reached out to victim services and I said, Look, I’m wondering what support services are available for me. because throughout the last nine years I have funded every psychological session or psychology session I’ve had. I have funded all of the healing, I’ve I’ve done all of that off off my own dollar.

 

And I started looking into it and there is a a victim’s support scheme that potentially gives you access to psychological support. In some cases it can give you some financial support as you work through work through your your healing. And when I requested that from victim services, they told me I was not eligible. Even as a victim of financial crime.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (27:48)

And that would make you feel like a victim all over again.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (27:51)

It is re-traumatizing because my question was why not? And they s they what I came to understand was victims of violent crime. That’s what these benefits apply to, but it does not apply to victims of financial crime. Now you could argue that the psychological and financial damage of of what happens in financial crime is just as traumatic as violent crime, but it’s not seen that way in the eyes of the law. Now maybe it’s because in some of these cases it is seen as a civil

 

a civil matter. But the reality is I am a victim, I am classified as a victim of crime, financial crime. So this is this is one thing that I didn’t know that very much grinds my gears. And so what I’m doing now is to go, okay, well how do we change that? How do I bring this to the attention of the right people so that we can have that adjusted?

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (28:47)

And is that just Australia, Tracy, or is that a is that a global treatment of the definition betwi distinguishing between what is and isn’t crime?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (28:57)

There are different versions in different countries. So financial crime across the board is not seen as seriously and is not funded as well from a victim support point of view as violent crime. And you know, that could be because this is I mean, fraud is as old as day. You know, it there have been fraud cases forever and a day. What

 

What hasn’t happened is the extent and the enormity of what we’re seeing in terms of scams and fraud that this has really just kind of exploded in the last five, six, seven years. So it could be that that things are just catching up. it could be a number of reasons. I don’t understand enough about that system to to know why, but what I’m doing now is I’m trying to find the right people within.

 

with inside the system or that have the ability to change it to at least advocate for that change and explain why it’s important that we level the playing field and and get these services. So, you know, i in my the response that came back to my question was what support do I have available as I as we move towards Hemish’s parole hearing. I was given the lifeline number.

 

And I don’t I mean Lifeline is incredible service, but I’m certainly not at risk in that way in this moment. So that’s not useful for me. What would be useful is to have somebody help pay my my psych sessions because they’re really expensive.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (30:28)

‘Cause you just got fleeced, yeah. Yeah.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (30:30)

So, but these are but these are the things and and the way that I look at it dine now and and this is the the benefit of of time and space between the event and being able to have this energy and this strength to do it is that what’s done is done for me. You know, I’m not sitting here going, Why don’t I get psych support? You know, that’s done.

 

What I can do is say, how can I make it better for the next person, for the next Tracy, for the next victim of financial crime. So that’s what I’m interested in. And I’m like, I will write the policy for you. I will help your teams develop it. I will tell you what it’s like to be a victim. Use my lived experience in a way that’s going to make it better for the next person. So that’s what I’m working on at the moment.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (31:19)

Yeah, brilliant. Well, we’re gonna jump to a quick break and coming back I want you to share some insights to ensure that it never happens to another person.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. I’m talking with Tracy Hall, global educator, author, keynote speaker, and financial wellness advocate. Tracy, you coined the phrase trust literacy, which I think is incredibly powerful.

 

Can you elaborate for our listeners on what you mean by that and how do we build that as a skill?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (32:08)

Mm. I think what’s interesting about trust right now is we have never had to question it as much as we do now. We do not know what is real and what is not anymore, and I can only see that getting worse. In terms of trust literacy, the way I think about that is we have been taught financial literacy, we’ve been taught digital literacy, but no one has ever taught us how to trust, who to trust.

 

why we should trust. And I think as we move further into this world where we don’t know what is real and what is not anymore, I think it’s a really important skill to be leaning into and talking about. I think we assume trust. You know, it’s just something that you think it’s just there. You look someone in the eye and you trust them. But you can’t do that anymore.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (33:00)

Well and I think that as we move into this predominantly AI driven space that we’re going in or going toward, I think trust to a certain extent historically was something was that was innate. But you’ve identified now so rightly it now needs to be a skill that we hone hone in on and improve.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (33:27)

Yeah, because we we can’t just assume trust. You know, as much as biologically we want to default to truth and assume honesty, this is just not the world that that we live in anymore. And, you know, I’m not just talking about people either, I’m talking about brands, organizations, governments. You know, we we’re talking about leadership. How do you create trust in all of these environments so that people

 

you know, it it’s all about a feeling of safety, really. And there are ways that you can build trust, there are ways that you can maintain trust, and there are things that you can do that if trust is broken, and sometimes trust is broken both on a personal level or through a you know, if you’re a customer of a company and something happens, say they have a breach. You know, your trust is broken in that moment. As a brand or as a company, you need to start to think about in advance.

 

What do we do if? How do we rebuild that? And there are a a number of of elements. It starts with leadership, of course. it goes, it runs all the way through to your communications and you know, and then there’s sort of the the cultural piece, which is the person to person. so trust literacy can be taught in a way in this world that we live in to make people a little more savvy because no longer can we rely on our innate

 

feelings and our biological wiring because we are given reasons every single day not to trust and I think I think it is it is going to be a school of the future and I think trust for brands and leaders is going to be the core differentiator.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (35:12)

Yeah. And I think if as we review the marketplace and think about what roles are are going to fade out and what roles are are going to emerge in an in an AI centric world, I think one role that exists that is going to be amplified is crisis management. Sadly.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (35:32)

Yep,

 

I would agree.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (35:36)

So let’s get practical for a moment if we could to move into some of this educational phase of our conversation, Tracy. what would you say are the clearest red flags in a romantic context, in a in a business context, in a digital context that tell you something’s off?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (35:59)

Mm. I want to start by saying the level of sophistication that is being created with the technology that is out there makes the red flags very, very difficult to spot. So previously if you were getting an email and there were loads of spelling grammatical errors and things were just very outlandish, you would automatically go, That’s a red flag.

 

But now what we are seeing are scams that are targeted to the individual. And they have been done through scraping you know internet, social media, different posts, so that they can actually create a scam that is relevant for you on this date in this moment. And they’re doing that thousands of times over. They’re creating websites that look exactly like the brand’s websites. So

 

I think we have to say that the sophistication level because of technology and AI is off the charts at the moment. It is no longer enough to say if you are on a an online romantic relationship, do a video call and then you’ll know. Because what we have is real-time face swapping video and voice cloning tools that are very, very accessible. So

 

you know, a person that’s sitting in another country with another nationality can actually overlay their face and their voice, their accent with something that it seems relevant and realistic to you based on every conversation you’ve had with them. And you’re like, see, I saw them. I saw them. I’ve ch I’ve spoken to them. So those recommendations around old flag red flags of old don’t really apply anymore. So what I like to say is if you’re proactively being reached out to

 

You know, if someone is reaching out to you, whether it be on social media or through an organization or something online, that’s a red flag. If you haven’t gone searching for that information and done your own research, then that’s that’s one thing. Urgency, as we spoke about. If someone is putting pressure on you to send money, give money, send data, then that’s something. And then I would say again what we spoke about before, be conscious of heightened emotions. So if it is a relationship

 

You know, there’s a beautiful saying, when you’re wearing rose coloured glasses, all the red flags are just flags. And so being aware of your own emotions, which is hard, you know, when you’re in love, but you know, that’s the best part about

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (38:31)

Well it is, but I think, you know, we forget that because that that really heady feeling of being in love only happens at you know, a couple of times in our lives and and it only lasts for s a period of time. It’s not enduring and that’s not to say you don’t stay in love, but that that bit where it’s so distracting you can’t stay focused, you can’t think what you’re doing, you you can’t focus on your job to the detriment of the employer potentially.

 

But the decisions you make at that time, I I know they’re they’re less considered than what is your normal mode of operation.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (39:12)

Yeah, exactly. And these criminals who you know, present these situations and these scams to to victims, they keep that feeling, that heady feeling going for as long as possible. You know, they are sending multiple messages a day. And you think about for, you know, people that may not have a lot of

 

friendships in their life or their family lives away, they might be a bit older. If you have someone reaching out to you ten times a day telling you how amazing you are and interested in your life and asking you questions and wanting to know what you’re doing, that is very seductive. You know, there there are people like I don’t even talk to my mum that many times a week, you know? And so these are these are the tactics that that they use to

 

pull you in and push you under that spell. So it’s I I think these are like the higher level red flags because what we used to say about looking out for these signs and these red flags, they’re just so sophisticated at hiding them now because the technology is so good.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (40:26)

Yeah. And whilst my experience with financial fraud was very different to yours, it was similar in dollar value. It was about four hundred Australian dollars of where I was dealing with my domestic office of the firm that I was working with and working with our international office in Chicago. And with the time zone hackers were able to intercept comms between our two respective EAs.

 

moved a dot point in a character, which led to changing details or the banking details as to where the banking was to be paid. It looked like it was going to a credible banking scenario and it ended up in a in a Turkish bank with my side of the company ending up with a representative of the AFP, the Chicago office with a member of the FBI.

 

And I found myself in a in a six month process and of course we got not one cent of that back. And I have a cynical view about comms that I receive via email ever since going through that. And I’ll be interested in your opinion on this, Tracy. And I don’t know how fail safe it is. I d I don’t click on you touched on websites looking authentic. I don’t click on any original

 

links in in emails anymore, I go and start a fresh search and search and log into the a website or or something through my my own means. But I often copy the entire email with all the address details and I drop it into chat. Now I don’t use chat as my day to day AI, but I do for the purposes of this and it very quickly recognizes

 

What is and isn’t fraud is how fail safe is that as a process?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (42:25)

I think I think you get ten points, Di. Okay. business business email compromise, which is what you’re saying, or redirection scams is one of the top the top scams where we see losses. Now it’s and it’s growing because again, the technology is intercepting, it makes it look like you’re in the same thread, whether it be from your bank or a supplier.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (42:50)

And mine six

 

years ago, so this is even more sophisticated now, I’m guessing.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (42:55)

Hundred percent. So the first thing to do is independently verify. And what that means is opening up a new browser, going to the website that you’ve Google search, going to the contact us, calling the number and saying, I want to confirm your payment details, for example. And it’s it’s really it’s really interesting because now I’m running my own small business, the amount of companies that don’t do that. So I’ll send an email off from zero.

 

And it’s very, you know, there’s every chance that at some point that will get intercepted and the BSB and account details will change. And the amount of companies that won’t call me on my mobile and say, I’m just checking off your BSB and account details. So it’s really interesting. So that’s that’s a key one if you’re if you’re paying invoices. chat is an incredible tool. I’ve never done it from an email point of view, but what my mum

 

Does and she’s very proud of herself. She’s nearly 80. I’m I’m like her tech support, right? So she’s like, I’ve just got this email. It looks a bit weird, but I’m not sure. But it’s telling me I’m gonna lose my emails if I don’t do this thing. And I said, mum sounds dodgy, but send it send it to me, I have a look at it. So what I’ve taught taught her to do is how to take a screenshot, yeah, put it into chat and say, Is this a scam? Nine point nine times out of ten, it will come back.

 

Accurately saying yes, this is a scam. And because chat loves a chat, it’s never just yes, this is a scam. It tells you the five red flags that that are the reasons why. And so that is brilliant for my mum and seniors because it’s teaching them the things to look for. The email address is Gmail, not it’s not from Microsoft.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (44:42)

Or it’s got a whole lot of weird characters in it that make no sense at all.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (44:46)

No

 

sense. The the the logo’s fuzzy. They’ve they’ve asked you to act urgently by clicking on a link. Like there’s all the signs that I know automatically, but but my mom and her friends probably don’t. So in teaching her how to do that, and now she’s teaching her friends, it’s it’s a brilliant tool. So there’s lots of different tech tips and tools that you can use that that take a little bit of time to explain and

 

It’s not even explaining them. You have to show people how to use them in some cases, specifically our seniors, who are some of our most vulnerable people and they have the most money to to lose in most cases.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (45:27)

And the and and no time to rebuild what they lose. No.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (45:31)

that’s and that’s the most heartbreaking thing, yeah.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (45:34)

Absolutely. I mean I I could you wouldn’t want to encounter me as the judge in court if you had defrauded people of their entire financial savings at a point in time when they can’t recoup it. Because that feels personal to me where I am at my age and yep. There would be all sorts of punishments that would not actually get through the high court today.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (46:02)

Yeah. Well there were there were some beautiful seniors that were part of the case with the with Hamish McLaren and part of the victim cohort who lost an incredible amount of money and they were staring down the barrel of a really nice retirement. They’d worked very, very hard and they went from that to not knowing how they were gonna pay for their groceries every week. And they were the people in that whole experience that broke my heart.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (46:31)

Okay.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (46:31)

my god, I get sad thinking about them even now because I was forty two, right? I knew I had twenty, twenty five years of work left in me. It it it sucks. It sucks so hard, but

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (46:44)

But there is a difference.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (46:45)

A hundred percent and they you know they didn’t have that opportunity and it just it just broke my heart. So that’s why I’m so passionate about seniors and helping them understand the tech to empower them because they’re so scared. They’re so fearful and it’s like how do we empower people with simple tools that it’s not enough just to say on a piece of comms, set up your two factor authentication or do a reverse image search. None of them know how to do it.

 

So you’ve got to sit with them, you’ve got to show them. You can’t just tell, you have to show. So that’s where I’m coming from. and and I do feel very, very passionately about the seniors. Yeah, anyway. I could go on for

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (47:28)

But it is it it is an inflection point where these these bastards and I don’t think I can call them anything less than that, is they’ve got this window of time between tech literacy and a generation that didn’t grow up with tech to to make hay and and they know that only only too well. So yeah, I get it.

 

Tracy, you’ve you’ve said publicly at a point in time you were at a one on your recovery scale at the worst of it, and now at an an at eight. How did you get there?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (48:07)

One step at a time. There were some days where I didn’t know how I was gonna get out of bed. And in those days I was very fortunate I had a child, a young child that needed to get to school every day and needed to get to her activities and I had a job. And my job was my only financial lifeline.

 

And I was so scared I was gonna lose it because I wasn’t operating at my best. In fact, I was probably the most destroyed I’ve ever been in my life. And but having that job and having her gave me something outside of myself that got me out of bed, put the one foot in front of the other, do one thing at a time, purpose, distraction. Distraction was wonderful. I became very, very good at compartmentalizing my life.

 

And disassociating, I’d say. You know, people would say to me, You’re so resilient, you know, you you’re really you’re on top of this, you’re so strong. And I thought to myself, I’m so disassociated, you know. So that was the beginning. And then and then it’s just a layering for me. It was a layering in of the basics. I got on top of my sleep. You know, sleep is the biggest, most positive hack that you can lean into. You know, I always say to my daughter who she’s nearly sixteen now.

 

Don’t trust your tired self. Life is hard when you’re tired. And there was a lot going on that I had to have my head screwed on for. So, you know, sleep, eating well, making sure I exercised. And then again, the layering of professional help. I did go on medication. I I sought therapy, I travelled, I engaged in new skills. You know, there’s so much. It’s not just one thing, you know. So I think I think it’s a it’s a bunch of things and you know

 

i over time time is time is wonderful too. it it does i it’s cliched and as you know, whatever it sounds, it it does time is a great healer.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (50:14)

I think that’s right. So as we come towards the close of our discussion today, could I ask you to speak directly to the woman who’s rebuilding from a setback in in whatever form it is? What would be the key message you’d like to leave her with?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (50:37)

think there’s probably a couple of things. Number one, find it within yourself to give yourself the most self compassion that you have ever mustered. It’s it’s very easy to be hard on ourselves in these moments. Coulda shoulda woulda, make the mistakes, whatever it is. Self compassion is key. And then I would say have a vision for yourself because I think it’s great to aim for something, but just take it one step at a time. You know these things don’t

 

heal themselves overnight. It is a long, messy, nonlinear journey to rebuild. It is definitely possible though. I hundred percent believe it’s possible for everyone who just need the right mindset, the right support. but just take it one step at a time and just day by day you get that little bit closer to your vision.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (51:28)

Yeah, brilliant. Tracy, how does somebody engage you if they’re looking for a professional to to speak on this or or some level of engagement around all the learnings that you have to offer based on your lived experience?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (51:46)

Yes, the easiest place to go is my website, tracyhall.com.au. you’ll find my email address there. Reach out to me on social media, LinkedIn, I’m very active on LinkedIn. But yeah, I’m working with organizations all over the world to to help use this experience to the greater good of their employees, their customers and their families.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (52:07)

Yeah, well done you. And there’s just a couple of points that I’d like to recap on. You said don’t trust your tired self. There is nothing truer than that. We make poor decisions and and poor choices when we’re not on on top of our game and we and we know that, you know, c lack of of cognition can be equivalent to to being drunk. So there is nothing more powerful than that. And the other thing that I picked up

 

That’s come through everything that you talked about that the experience that you had was this sense of heightened urgency. And and my call out to that would be don’t be afraid to slow things down. I had a business partner who always used to say, I’m gonna sleep on it. And I used to go, crap, can’t you just make a decision now? But there’s a lot to be said, whether it’s sleeping on it or just

 

Stepping back and despite the urgency, if it’s not dealing with a physical emergency in front of you that is life and death, do take the time to slow it down and allow yourself a moment to reflect and and and make a considered decision and and step away from the emotion that is surrounding you at the time. And I know it’s easier said than done.

 

But it but it is it is worth calling out. So that would be one of my cool takeaways. So if you’ve loved this podcast, please let us know. Write a r write a review because that is the most powerful thing you can do to help other people find it and share this episode with somebody who you think needs it. And also find me on LinkedIn because I would love to hear what landed for you in the discussion with Tracy today.

 

Until next time.