2CC Canberra Radio 26 August 2026
Summary
Luke Coleman, CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, urges all Australians to be vigilant and maintain a healthy degree of suspicion to avoid being scammed. The interview was conducted as part of the ATA’s involvement in Scams Awareness Week, 24 – 28 August 2026. Luke Coleman outlined the four major types of scams: phishing, payment redirection, romance, and impersonation scams. Authorities advise individuals to Stop, Check, and Protect themselves by verifying identities before making payments. Victims are urged to immediately contact their bank and report incidents to the National Anti-Scam Centre: Scamwatch – to help combat fraudulent activities.
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Thanks for having me on the program.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Yeah, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start at the beginning here. Who’s the Australian Telecommunications Alliance exactly?
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: So, we’re an industry body. We represent all of the major telcos in Australia, Telstra, Optus, NBN, Vodafone and a long list of other telcos. So, the telcos have been taking action against scammers for years now and trying to block as many scams as possible. But ultimately, it’s Australians themselves that are on the front line to take action to prevent themselves from being scammed.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Indeed, telcos and internet providers are very much on the front line but, clearly, it’s a big challenge. And I suppose, tell me if I’m wrong, but there might be limits to what you can do.
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Look, the telcos have put systems in place to try to block patterns of behaviour that we see on our networks, where we see scams being executed. Maybe it’s text messages that are being sent out in bulk. Maybe it’s phone calls coming from a particular country or a particular provider that looks suspicious. But ultimately, there are billions of calls and texts that are sent in Australia every single year. We can’t block all of them. And so that’s why we want to make sure that Australians are well armed, that they can know when they are potentially being scammed and that they can be on alert if they ever get a call or a text message that looks suspicious, so that they know how to act.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Okay and of course all of us as consumers are in fact our own last line of defence aren’t we? We need to be aware, and we need to be as well-equipped as possible. So, what do we need to know?
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: So, we really just want Australians to be suspicious. If you are called or texted, and there is a sense of urgency being created where someone’s asking for your login information or your bank details, that should be putting up a red flag for you. So the motto that Scams Awareness Week is built around is Stop, Check and Protect. That first step is ‘Stop’. Take a moment. If you’re being asked for your personal information. If you’re being asked to send an urgent bank transfer. That should be a red flag for you. And we see the kind of scams that are out there. They’re often romance scams where you might have been messaging somebody online, maybe you’ve formed a friendship or a relationship with somebody online. And then, all of a sudden, they face a medical emergency, or they’re caught in customs travelling overseas and they need money to get out. These are the kind of typical scams we see that create that sense of urgency so that you do the bank transfer. And by the time you figure out what’s happened, that money is gone and you cannot get it back. So, the first piece of advice for Australians is to just stop. Check who it is that you’re speaking to, or who you’re messaging with. If someone is calling, maybe they’re even claiming to be from your bank, hang up the phone and say: “I will call the bank directly.” Find the right phone number and call them. Maybe it’s a provider of another service, but if they’re calling you, should be extremely suspicious and say: “I will contact you.” And that way you can make sure that you’re speaking to who you should be speaking to.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Now, I’ve had the experience where I’ve received a phone call from an organisation, and then they’ve proceeded to ask me questions to verify my identity. And I’ve said: “Hold your horses, you called me.” And in those cases, it has actually turned out to be a legitimate organisation. So, if they are ringing me, why are they doing that? Shouldn’t they know that’s a problem?
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Look, you are right to be suspicious, and it is the case that in a lot of circumstances, it may be perfectly legitimate. I’ve had the same thing happen to myself. But if you are worried it could be a scam, there is no danger at all in just hanging up the phone and saying: “I’m going to check that you are who you say you are.” You know what, if it’s from your bank, you can go onto your bank’s website and you can find their contact number, and you can call them back. If they’ve got something that they need to communicate with you, and you call them back in their contact centre you can be sure you are speaking to who they claim to be if you’ve made the call for them. So that might be a bit inconvenient for people, but scammers are extremely sophisticated. They know how these systems work, and they know that a lot of the time you are used to receiving a legitimate call. And so they will try to use that against you by lulling you into a false sense of security that it’s all legitimate. But there is no danger in calling them back. So first, Stop. Second, Check. You can check who you are speaking to by you reaching out to them and calling them. That way you won’t have to be worried about them being someone who they really aren’t.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Indeed. And you’ve identified four main types of scams. You’ve spoken about phishing already. That’s the first one. The other three are payment redirection scams, romance scams, and impersonation scams. Briefly, what does each one involve? And I’m told that romance scams are actually really quite big. There’s a lot of them.
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: They are significant source of scams. So, as you’ve mentioned, we’ve got phishing text scams. This is when you get a text message. Maybe it’s from someone claiming to be a toll road operator saying that you didn’t pay a toll and you need to click on this link to complete the toll payment. They can occasionally come from someone pretending to be a courier saying we haven’t been able to deliver your package. Click this link to complete this payment. Those are the kind of phishing text scams that we see. There’s payment redirection scams. This is where you receive an invoice. Maybe it’s for a new car you’re looking to buy. Maybe it’s even for a house deposit where someone will pretend to be, maybe it’s a real estate agent, maybe it’s the car dealership and it looks extremely convincing, where you think that you’re paying that invoice, but you’re actually transferring money to a scammer. Again, you’ve got to stop and check that you are dealing with who you believe you’re dealing with, particularly if you’re doing a major transfer. Just go and do that double check. But romance scams is what you’ve mentioned. Australians lose so much money to romance scammers. This is where you’ve built a relationship with someone online. Maybe you’ve met them on a dating website or a social media website, but you might not have actually ever met this person, in person. You might not have even spoken to them on the phone. You’ve just spoken by a messenger or something similar to that. And what typically happens is they will, again, use a sense of urgency. They will say, I’ve fallen ill or a member of my family has fallen ill, or I need to travel to go and see my mother who’s been hospitalised. Can you please quickly send me $5,000? I’m in a bind. And it’s only after the transfer has gone ahead that people realise they’ve been scammed, and they immediately get blocked. So again, the words are: ‘Stop, Check and Protect’. Make sure that you double check that you are dealing with, the person that they say they are, and if you’ve got any suspicions, don’t make that bank transfer.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Now, the other important thing for people to remember is if you have fallen victim to a scam, if you realise, too late, oh no, I’ve done the wrong thing here, what do they need to do then?
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: First of all, get in touch with your bank as soon as you possibly can. The second you realise that something has gone awry, get in touch with your bank to see if they can prevent the transaction from going through. Now, in many cases, it might already be too late. These scammers will set up a fraudulent bank account, they will take the money and they’ll shut it down, and they’ll never be seen again. But act as quickly as you can to reach out to your bank to let them know about the scam. The second thing you should do report it to the National Anti-Scam Centre. So we’ve got the ACCC runs the National Anti-Scam Centre or Scamwatch, as it’s called. Scamwatch keeps records of all the reported scams in Australia. So this is where we get our statistics about the kind of scams that are being executed out there. It helps us to counter those scammers because the more information we have about the kind of scams that are being prosecuted out there, the more we can inform people and educate people to try to stop them. So first of all, report it to your bank. Second of all, report it to Scamwatch.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Luke, thanks very much for your time today.
ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Thanks for having me.
2CC Host: Leon Delaney: Luke Coleman, the CEO at the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, on 2CC.
ENDS
