I'm guessing in this instance 20% deposit (5% is available, but their house is over the limit) and double income, that's their collateral.
Australia's overheated property market has become a target for hackers — and they're scamming millions By technology reporter James Purtill Posted 11 hours ago https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...-estate-deposit-property-settlement/101000288 Real estate scams are feeding on the Australian dream of home ownership.(Getty Images: William West) The scammers' first email to Kelly and her husband arrived in the small hours of the night, when they were sleeping. "Due to the ongoing bank audit on our account," the email read, "please see attached our subsidiary trust account details for the payment of $25,000 deposit." Key points: Property settlement scams are becoming more common as house prices rise Scammers hack email accounts to impersonate conveyancers or real estate agents and collect money intended for home deposits Poor cybersecurity, as well as the failure of banks to verify account names, has made Australia a target, experts say The email address looked legitimate — it was the real estate agent's. Kelly and her husband, both young engineers and "tech savvy", were at the pointy end of buying a house in Western Australia. And so the next day, Kelly's husband sent their hard-earned home deposit to a scammer, and never saw that money again. Property settlement scams are becoming more common as house prices rise and scammers turn their focus to the large and often lightly protected sums of money that prospective buyers are transferring to the trust accounts of real estate agents and conveyancers. Known as "payment redirection", it's part of a category of scams called "business email compromise", where criminals hack an employee's email account and then, impersonating that employee, send a payment request, substituting their own bank account details. The victims tend to be individual home buyers or small business owners, for whom the consequences of a lost deposit are devastating. Six months on, Kelly and her husband haven't yet told their parents or their friends that they got scammed. "It's been very, very stressful," Kelly said. "There's a lot of self-blame. You're ashamed — I'm the idiot that fell for it." Real estate scams on the rise in 2022 According to national figures, plenty of others are falling for the scam too. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) Scamwatch receives on average about two reports per week of payment redirection scams in real estate. March 2022 saw 14 reports alone — the highest figure in 15 months. "Twenty-five reports were made this year, which is an increase of 25 per cent on the same period in 2021 and losses this year are up 186 per cent to $1.8 million," an ACCC spokesperson said. NSW, which has the nation's most expensive property market, accounts for three-quarters of the $4.3 million lost through this scam around the country from January 2021 to the end of March 2022. A 10 per cent deposit on a median house in Sydney is $160,000 — an increase of $40,000 in 12 months.(ABC News: Michael Coggan) Buyers aren't the only parties being targeted says Chris Tyler, chief executive officer of the NSW division of the Australian Institute of Conveyancers (AICNSW). Fraudsters have even used payment redirection to scam the stamp duty a conveyancer had intended to transfer to state revenue, he says. "Because property transactions are so high in value, all the parties in the transaction are being targeted: The real estate agents, the mortgage brokers, the conveyancer. "Half the time the deposit could be a couple hundred thousand dollars." 'The value of houses has gone up so much' The Sydney law firm of Clyde & Co's cyber incident response team handles multiple business email compromise (BEC) incidents every week. "We've noticed an uptick over the last three or four months," said Reece Corbett-Wilkins, a member of the response team. Though less "sexy" than ransomware, BEC is just as big a problem, he says. "For every ransomware demand that I know gets paid, I can tell you 20 victims of a BEC scam, accounting for just as much if not more." Clyde & Co saw a 150 per cent increase in reported BEC incidents from 2018 to 2021. In some cases, the losses are huge — a client of a client recently misdirected a $750,000 transaction. Canberra woman allegedly scammed $1 million A 29-year-old Sydney woman faces court over an alleged property scam that fleeced $1 million from a prospective Canberra home buyer. Read more "The value of houses has gone up so much. There's a lot of cash flowing through the real estate sector," Mr Corbett-Wilkins said. The nature of real estate transactions, involving many parties and often not much cybersecurity, makes them a favourite target of scammers. "These attacks are super sophisticated," he said. "You've got this combination of factors that all come together and you think, well, this is ripe for the picking." Scam continues after money transferred It takes at least six years, though often longer, for the average home buyer to save for a deposit on a house in Sydney or Melbourne.(Supplied: ACT Government) After Kelly's husband sent the scammers the $25,000, the scammers stayed in touch via email, maintaining the charade and allaying suspicion for long enough for the transfer to clear. "I will issue a copy of our trust receipt once the funds hit our account," they wrote back to the couple. At the same time, the scammers were emailing the real estate agent, using an address that closely resembled Kelly's husband's, to assure them the home deposit funds were on their way. "They had changed one letter in our email address to respond back to the real estate agent," Kelly said. The couple only reported they had been scammed a week later, when the real estate agent called to ask them for the deposit. By then, the money had been transferred to another Australian bank account, and from there to a cryptocurrency exchange, where it was converted to Bitcoin. "That's where our bank stopped — they said we can't pursue it any further," Kelly said. "We're still waiting for the police — it took them several months to say they’re even looking into it." Where are the scammers located? The FBI has coordinated several global operations, along with national police agencies like the AFP, to disrupt BEC schemes. Most of the arrests have been made in the United States and Nigeria. A 2018 report by the cybersecurity company Crowdstrike also pointed to cyber criminals in Nigeria, including the "formidable criminal organisation" known as "Black Axe". According to the report, Black Axe "has developed a hierarchical, inter-state organisation while at the same time retaining cult-like tendencies" and its gangs are "involved in a multitude of organised crime ventures such as running prostitution rings, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, grand theft, money laundering, and email fraud/cybercrime." The report reads: Younger Nigerian criminals — often called Yahoo Boys — are said to begin their scamming careers while undergraduates at university. There are thousands of undergraduates in Nigeria who participate in online fraud, and it has been estimated that there are approximately 5 million online scammers in the Lagos region. Novices typically start off with variations on the classic "Nigerian prince" email scam — attempting to lure victims to part with a payment with the promise of a return on this investment at a later date. They then graduate to BEC scams, working either as individuals or within groups, and using malware such as keyloggers to steal passwords and compromise email systems. "Ransomware tends to be Eastern Europe, Russia, Estonia, areas like that," Mr Corbett-Wilkins said. "BEC scams tend to be more in Africa and parts of continental Asia." What can I do to protect myself? In response to the increase in real estate scams, conveyancers, brokers, and agents are being taught to reduce the risk of payment redirection by, for instance, not sending requests for transfers via email. But industry training isn't enough on its own, Mr Tyler said. "It’s about trying to educate mums and dads out there in the community," he said. The ACCC has the following tips: Prior to sending money, especially for large transactions, always check the account details are correct by calling the person you are paying via a number you have sourced independently If you receive a request that creates a sense of urgency, don’t rush. Take the time to consider and check whether an email is real, including by looking carefully at the sender’s email address. If you have received a request to change payment details, always check with the organisation using contact details you have previously stored, rather than those supplied in the email. If you have been the victim of a scam, contact your bank as soon as possible. Mr Corbett-Wilkins has similar advice, and also recommends two-factor authentication for your email account (and your online accounts in general). He added that even if you've been scammed, your bank may be able to claw the money back before it's been transferred out of reach. "You've got a three-day window where if you act, [there are] high chances you'll get the money back," he said. Banks accused of failing to protect customers Aside from education, there's another relatively simple measure that would prevent many payment redirection scams. If Kelly's bank had noted a customer was transferring $25,000 to an account number (the scammer's) that did not match the account name (the real estate agent's), it could have blocked the transfer. Banks are not checking account names on electronic money transfers.(ABC News: Sasha McCarthy) Banks have been dragging their heels on this, Mr Tyler said. "Banks have to start verifying the account name versus account number," he said. "If we have robust identification of a person when they're opening an account, then you can verify against that." The ACCC has recommended account name verification to the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). In February 2020, it wrote to ASIC recommending it examine the verification model that would be rolled out in the UK the following month: Where other jurisdictions make it more difficult for scammers, Australian consumers and businesses are at increased risk of being key targets for scammers. The banks have argued against such a system, saying that greater scrutiny of account names would end up blocking legitimate transactions. There are no signs that Australia will follow the UK's lead anytime soon. ASIC's current review of the ePayments code, a voluntary code of practice for the banks, does not include the prospect of name verification for scam prevention. Months later, memory of scam still stings Back in Western Australia, Kelly and her husband have forked out another $25,000 to buy the original house. "We do love it, but it's definitely ruined the house a little for us," she said.
Opinion If you care about Australia’s future, care about declining home ownership Ross Gittins Economics Editor April 25, 2022 https://www.watoday.com.au/business...declining-home-ownership-20220424-p5afoc.html The most thought-provoking contribution I’ve heard so far in this utterly dumbed-down election campaign is from barrister Gray Connolly, saying the big issue we should be debating is housing and intergenerational wealth. Connolly was speaking as a self-proclaimed Red Tory, on ABC Radio National’s Religion and Ethics Report. Red Tories, he says, are people on the political Right who have a more traditional view of what we’re trying to achieve. They are true conservatives, trying to conserve the institutions and practices that have given us the way of life we value. We risk stripping away the Australian way of life if we create a society where young people can’t afford housing. Credit:Wolter Peeters Red Tories believe in communitarianism – much more about “we” than “me”. They highlight the virtues of home and family. They emphasise the boring virtues, like duty, perseverance and loyalty, not just people’s rights. That so few Australians under 40 have any form of home ownership or wealth of any kind is a ticking timebomb socially, Connolly says. It’s this that could split the country demographically. “I cannot believe how little work either side of politics has done on the housing issue. It’s an absolute disgrace that the Coalition, on the Right of politics, for whom home ownership is usually something very important, has done so little to promote home ownership among young people. “You cannot have a stable country where so many people do not have security in their homes, do not have security in their work, don’t feel they’re getting ahead, and do not feel they have a stake in society that causes them to want to preserve it. “I cannot believe that so many people on the Right of politics do not get this,” he says. How do the economic policies of recent decades adversely affect traditional conservative values? “For the better part of 20 years, nothing has been done other than pour fuel on the housing-price fire,” he says. This has continued even to the point of not looking after renters, not looking after people with insecure work. The fact that so few Australians under 40 have any form of home ownership or wealth of any kind is a ticking timebomb socially, Gray Connolly says.Credit Peter Rae It has delayed coupling and family formation for most people. “If you don’t have secure work, chances are you’re not going to form a family because chances are you cannot afford a home.” If you have housing that is so expensive, then you have young people moving away from where their parents are. You have the family bond dissolve, he says. “If you are a conservative, you want to conserve [that bond].” You want adult children to be able to look after their ageing parents. You want grown-up children to be able to turn to their parents for childcare. This, he says, is the natural order of society. But because “the market” and government policy mean we don’t “prioritise residential housing for actual residence, but for investment, you have the absolute social disaster where these bonds are being split apart.” Does it surprise you to hear anyone on the Right accepting that insecure work is a major social problem? Though the Red Tory label is a recent British invention, Connolly traces its origins back to the mid-19th century and Benjamin Disraeli. Then, then the Conservatives saw the trade union movement as a necessary counterbalance to the “viciousness and brutality of Manchester liberalism,” Connolly says. (Manchester would have been seen as centre of the dark satanic mills.) Connolly says Red Tories accept the role of the state as protector of the nation, but also of the family and the family structure. They see the state as being useful for achieving bigger projects for the national good. Phillip Bond, instigator of Britain’s Red Tory revival, says the market has a tendency to devour its host society. Connolly says this is a very dangerous tendency and that’s where the state comes in. Corporations are creatures of statute, and what statutes make they can unmake and can regulate, he says. So rather than fearing the state is too powerful, “I am much more scared of the state that’s too reluctant to bring corporations to heel”. A corporation has no special rights in society any more than any other group does. The state is meant to protect the rights that people need to be protected. We should be conserving society and the community and serving the weakest and the hurt, he concludes. I think there’s much sense in what Connolly says, and not just about the high social price we’ll pay for making too many jobs insecure and homes too hard for too many young people to afford. We’ll damage the Australian way of life. The economy is all of us. It belongs to all of us, not just a few big corporations. It must be the servant of our society. Governments’ job is to ensure the economy improves our way of life and doesn’t diminish it.
Inflation surge could see super-sized interest rate hike in June, economists warn By business reporter Michael Janda Posted 2h ago The purchasing power of Australians' money is expected to fall by the most in a year since September 2008.(ABC News) The latest official inflation figures are expected to be the highest since the global financial crisis, and at least one leading economist has warned it could trigger an extra large first interest rate hike from the Reserve Bank. Key points: The typical forecast is that consumer prices rose 4.6 per cent over the past year Economists expect that the inflation numbers released on Wednesday will seal the case for a June interest rate rise Westpac is forecasting that June interest rate rise will be 40 basis points, while most other forecasts are for a 15-basis-point increase The Australian Bureau of Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the first three months of the year comes out tomorrow at 11:30am AEST. It does not take an economics degree for most Australians to figure out prices have been rising fast over recent months, but the experts do have a range of forecasts on just how much the cost of living has gone up. According to Refinitiv, the typical forecast is for prices to have risen by 1.7 per cent over the first few months of this year, and 4.6 per cent since this time last year. If accurate, that would be the biggest annual consumer price increase since CPI jumped 5 per cent in the year to September 2008, which immediately preceded the peak of the global financial crisis. But some economists are forecasting even bigger price rises still. Westpac is tipping a 2 per cent jump in consumer prices over the past quarter and a 4.9 per cent surge over the year. "The biggest contributor is the cost of building a house, which of course includes building construction materials, construction wages, and the margins that developers are able to get," the bank's chief economist Bill Evans told the ABC's RN Breakfast program. Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Large inflation jump expected - Monday Finance with Michael Janda Westpac is expecting new house purchases to have seen a 5.4 per cent price increase just over the first few months of the year, largely driven by the federal government's HomeBuilder subsidy — grants that had previously kept inflation in this sector artificially low while stoking demand that, combined with materials and labour shortages, has sent construction costs soaring. Now the effect of the grant has worn off, the full extent of construction cost increases is showing up in the numbers. Fuel is also another major source of surging inflation, with a forecast 10.9 per cent jump in March quarter prices preceding the government's budget move to halve fuel excise for six months, which should see much of that increase reversed in the current June quarter. Finally, a 6.6 per cent surge in fruit and vegetable prices, leading a 2.1 per cent quarterly jump in food prices overall, is the other biggest contributor. But, even stripping out the biggest price increases, along with the weakest ones, the Reserve Bank's preferred measure of 'underlying' or 'core' inflation — the trimmed mean — is still widely expected to be 1.2 per cent for the quarter and 3.4 per cent for the year. This is both the consensus forecast and Westpac's expectation. "The big message from the underlying inflation is that it's widely distributed," Mr Evans said. "There's pressures everywhere: household goods, clothing, right across the board. "Normally, when we look at the so-called trimmed mean, which is the core numbers, it ranges from some negatives to some positives. This time, there's no negatives." Westpac tips 40-basis-point rate rise If inflation comes in close to its forecast, and unemployment falls down to 3.8 per cent as Westpac expects when the April figures are released in mid-May, the bank is now expecting the Reserve Bank's first move to be an unusually large one. "There is considerable speculation that they'll move on the 3rd of May, but I think that's really been ruled out by the guidance that we've seen from the Reserve Bank about wanting to see data over the coming months," Mr Evans said. "We did expect that they'd only go by 0.15 [percentage points] but now, with this much stronger inflation environment, much stronger labour market, I think the need is there to go faster than that. "So a first move of 0.4 [percentage points], and then settle back into 0.25 [percentage point] moves in most of the months between now and the end of the year." If Mr Evans and his team are right, that means the cash rate would rise to 0.5 per cent on June 7, with their forecast that it would peak at 2 per cent sometime next year. Aside from the domestic inflation pressures forcing the RBA to act, Mr Evans also cited recent and forecast aggressive rate hikes overseas, which threaten to leave Australia's central bank well behind. "The Federal Reserve is going to be raising rates in early May by 50 basis points, and then another 50 basis points just after the June 7 board meeting of the RBA," he said. "And we've recently seen the Bank of Canada and the [Reserve] Bank of New Zealand raising rates by 50 basis points. "So the theme around the world, in the developed world is you should go by 50s. Now, we don't think the Reserve Bank will see the need to do 50 [basis points] at this stage. But we do think there'll be a need for some catch up." Even a financial crisis couldn't stop rate rises in 2008 The Reserve Bank has indicated that it is waiting for further information not only on inflation but also on wages before it starts to lift interest rates. The next Wage Price Index come out on May 18 and April's unemployment data will be released on May 19, just two days before the federal election. However, while he does not believe the RBA will raise interest rates on May 3 before receiving that data, Mr Evans is also now convinced the Reserve Bank will not delay the first rate rise past June regardless of what that labour market data reveals. "I don't think there's any doubt that the pressures in the labour market are starting to show up in in wages as well," he said, when asked whether weaker-than-expected wages or jobs data might give the bank pause for thought. "So the idea of waiting in the face of these very, very high inflation numbers, I think is unlikely." Mr Evans believes the Reserve Bank will tread carefully because Australia's current level of household debt makes people extremely sensitive to interest rate rises, hence Westpac's forecast of the cash rate target topping out at 2 per cent — rival CBA has an even lower forecast for the rate peak, of just 1.25 per cent. However, he also told RN Breakfast that the Reserve Bank is very committed to its 2-3 per cent inflation target, as demonstrated the last time price rises threatened to get out of control in 2007-08. "Underlying inflation jumped from 2.9 per cent to 3.6 per cent, we're talking about 3.4 per cent this time, with a likely further increase in the next quarter," he said. "The central bank was so worried about that jump from 2.9 to 3.6 [per cent] that it actually raised interest rates twice in in February and March of 2008, after having got that December quarter number. "Bear in mind at the time we realised that the world was facing a financial crisis, and yet the Reserve Bank was prepared to push rates hard, because of their concern about inflation." Those two 25-basis-point rate increases in February and March 2008 took the RBA's cash rate target to 7.25 per cent, even as US authorities were organising a bailout and takeover of failing investment bank Bear Stearns. Official rates remained at 7.25 per cent until being slashed in a series of large emergency rate cuts from September 2008 onwards as investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed and the global financial crisis threatened a worldwide depression. Wall Street traders on September 15, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.(Reuters/file) "So the rate was well above whatever we thought was neutral at the time," Mr Evans recalled. "Whereas now, of course, it's 0.1 [per cent] and we're a long way below neutral. "Neutral is lower now than it was in that period, but it's certainly well below neutral at this stage.
Gummint will do whatever it can do to suppress a rate rise prior to election in order to rig a voting outcome next month.
A ‘cancer on our democracy’: How to fix Australia’s pork-barrelling crisis Jessica Irvine Senior economics writer April 26, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...s-pork-barrelling-crisis-20220425-p5afsy.html Amid higher fuel and food costs, and the spectre of looming interest rate hikes, Australian families are busily battening down the hatches on their household budgets. How galling it is, then, to watch the nation’s politicians merrily traipsing around the country maxing out the national credit card on netball courts, surf lifesaver change rooms and boondoggle infrastructure projects to buy votes in marginal electorates. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the campaign trail yesterday.Credit:James Brickwood It’s called pork-barrelling and it’s time we had an urgent national conversation about how to stop it. After all, we end up picking up the tab for these dubious projects via the taxes we pay. And how much tax we pay is, of course, a key driver of our cost of living. Few Australians begrudge the money governments spend on public goods and services which pass a cost-benefit analysis and enhance our national quality of living. Good schools, hospitals, roads and welfare for the less fortunate, for example. But the election-time flurry of spending in marginal seats is a growing cancer on our democracy.......
In just four weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised more than $23.3 billion worth of projects, including funding for the Wanneroo BMX club.Credit:James Brickwood Scott from marketing.
Trust in PM at record low, both leaders’ competency rated rock bottom Phillip CooreyPolitical editor Apr 26, 2022 https://www.afr.com/politics/federa...-competency-rated-rock-bottom-20220425-p5aftx Scott Morrison is perceived as vastly less trustworthy than Labor leader Anthony Albanese, and even more untrustworthy than Tony Abbott at his most unpopular. At the same time, Mr Albanese has plumbed new depths in terms of economic management, setting a poll record-low of 31 per cent, the latestThe Australian Financial Review/Ipsos poll finds. Both Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese are tied at a record low 42 per cent in terms of overall competency, the lowest level for either a prime minister and Opposition leader in 27 years. Voters appear underwhelmed with both Anthony Albanese and Scot Morrison Jason Edwards Mr Morrison is perceived as the better visionary and Mr Albanese is regarded as having a better handle on his party. Just 30 per cent of voters regards the Prime Minister as trustworthy, compared with 41 per cent for Mr Albanese. While Mr Albanese’s trust rating is just above the 39 per cent rating of his predecessor Bill Shorten at this stage of the most recent 2019 election campaign, Mr Morrison’s record low 30 per cent rating is well below the 44 per cent trustworthy rating he had at the same stage in 2019. His trust rating is also 5 percentage points lower than the previous record low of 35 per cent Mr Abbott recorded in July 2015, just two months before he was deposed by his party as prime minister......
I didn't realize Morrison is a life long government official and he also worked in the NZ government for Tourism: Early career After graduating from university, Morrison worked as national policy and research manager for the Property Council of Australia from 1989 to 1995.[2] He then moved into tourism, serving as deputy chief executive of the Australian Tourism Task Force and then general manager of the Tourism Council of Australia; the latter was managed by Bruce Baird, whom he would eventually succeed in federal parliament.[23] In 1998, Morrison moved to New Zealand to become director of the newly created Office of Tourism and Sport. He formed a close relationship with New Zealand's tourism minister, Murray McCully, and was involved with the creation of the long-running "100% Pure New Zealand" campaign.[23][30] He left this position in 2000, a year before the contract schedule.[31] Morrison returned to Australia in 2000, to become state director of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party. He oversaw the party's campaigns in the 2001 federal election and in the 2003 New South Wales state election.[19] Looks maybe if he loses here he can go and run for NZ PM later on. US politicians are all Lawyers which makes them perfect BSers.