Scammers, hackers and dodgy money transfers – are you protected?

I recently read an article reporting that former footballer, Benny Elias, was scammed of $860,000 in a property transaction when hackers impersonated his lawyer.

Whilst I don't have personal knowledge of this particular matter, it does come as an important reminder to be extra careful when transferring money online. Unfortunately, this type of scam is relatively wide-spread, to the point where the Law Society of New South Wales has issued scam alerts warning of the same. In fact just minutes before the publishing of this article, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) published a notice confirming that Australian "small businesses reported 1,200 scams with $4.5 million in losses in the first half of this year. While this is fewer reports than in the previous six-month period, it is a more than threefold increase in losses".