Back in 2015, Daniel Marin was offered a unique opportunity – to be part of a new team at NAB to tackle scams.
The team would consist of just three people. It would be known as the anti-scam team and no other Australian bank had one.
Scams were an emerging problem in Australia in 2015.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Targeting Scams Report 2015, over 105, 000 Australians reported scams, with $85 million in reported losses.
This figure has increased by over 3,000% in the last decade to $3.1 billion.
When Daniel joined the team, he had been with NAB for about six years, starting in the call centre and then working his way up while completing a university degree in Business and Marketing to a role in what we now call the Digital Fraud & Scams team.
“The opportunity came up around an emerging trend of fraud and scams,” Daniel said.
“The scam situation was one no other big bank in Australia had catered for at the time.”
“We recognised an opportunity in this space to support customers, and developed the anti-scam team in Fraud Operations. We were the first bank to introduce a national anti-scam team over eight years ago.”
The evolution of scams
Back then, dating and romance scams made the bulk of the losses nationwide, with over $25 million reported lost to the ACCC.
“The majority (of cases) were around romance scams,” Daniel said.
“Goods and services scams were also being seen as social media came into the mix, and customers were letting us know they weren’t receiving what they’d paid for.”
Almost a decade later, romance scams still appear in the top five most reported scams targeting Australians. Last year, remote access scams and investment scams made up the two most common scams targeting individuals.
“At this time of year many people are purchasing presents online, waiting for parcels and often sending and receiving payments as gifts, and scammers know this and can make anyone their target,” Daniel said.
But it was the romance scam stories that left an indelible mark on Daniel all those years ago.
“When you are speaking with customers on the phone who have been vulnerable and gone through a difficult time, and then they’ve fallen into a romance scam and sent their entire life savings overseas and there is very little chance of us recovering their money… I vividly remember conversations I had with customers in this situation, and how I wanted to help,” Daniel said.
A lot has changed in the anti-scam team since then.
Initially, the team was focused on trying to recover and trace funds for customers who would report a scam, but now it is actively focused on preventing scams before they happen.
