Uncensored Money Season Five: Mel talks scams, with Tracy Hall

Melissa Browne: Ex-Accountant, Ex-Financial Advisor, Ex-Working Till I Drop, Now Serial Entrepreneur & Author, Financial Wellness Advocate, Living a Life by Design | 26/08/2024

 

Show Notes

This week it’s scam awareness week and last year, $2.7 billion was lost to scammers in Australia. That’s more than $5,200 per minute – and that’s only the scams we know about. So many more would have kept quiet.

That’s why I’m excited to be talking to Tracy Hall, who in 2017 discovered the man she’d been dating for two years, Max, was one of Australia’s most prolific con men – Hamish McLaren. Also known as Hamish Watson. Also known as Hamish Maxwell.

During our chat, you’ll hear just how much she lost, red flags to be aware of, what to do if someone you think is being scammed, how to move on from the shame of being scammed and so much more.

Tracy’s story highlights that it doesn’t matter her you’re from, how you were raised or educated or how intuitive you think you are – anyone can fall victim to a scam.

Books and resources mentioned in this episode

• My Financial Adulting Plan

If you're on insta, come play over at @MelBrowne.Money and make sure you’re signed up to Mel's Money Musings for more tips, tricks and ideas on how to best work with your money.

Finally, if you love this episode please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Mel: Hey everyone. I'm Mel Browne. I'm an ex-accountant and ex-financial advisor, so I have the theory, but I also have the life experience. I'm now financially independent in my own right after coming back from less than nothing in my early thirties. I want this podcast to be like a chat with your girlfriends about money. My aim is to help you discover why you're behaving the way you are with money, to suggest new ways you might behave that are a better fit for you, and to increase your financial literacy and financial confidence. I hope it inspires challenges, educates and empowers you with how you do money. So let's get into it. Welcome to Uncensored Money.

Mel: Did you know that last year, $2.7 billion was lost to scammers in Australia? That's more than $5,200 a minute, and that's only the scams we know about so many more would've kept quiet.

Mel: This week. It's scams awareness week. And it's part of the reason why I'm excited to be talking to Tracy Hall, who in 2017 discovered the man she'd been dating for two years, Max was one of Australia's most prolific conman, Hamish McLaren, also known as Hamish Watson or Hamish Maxwell. During our chat, you'll hear just how much she lost red flags to be aware of what to do if someone you think is being scammed, how to move on from the shame of being scammed and so much more. But for me, Tracy's story highlights that it doesn't matter where you're from, how you were raised, how educated you are, or how intuitive you think you are. Anyone can fall victim to a scam. Now, you might not think you need to listen to this podcast, but I've gotta tell you, you do, because it might be someone that you know and love that you don't realize is being scammed. Or maybe you've got a little spidey sense going off and it's something that you need to press more into. We'll also put more of the resources, including a link to Tracy's book in the show notes. But for now, enjoy Tracy's story. Welcome, Tracy. I'm so excited to talk to you today.

Tracy: Hi, Mel. How are you?

Mel: Nice to see you again. I wanted to start our conversation by saying if I was looking at you, you know, the obvious blonde, gorgeous pocket rocket that, or looked at your resume of senior marketing executive of some incredible companies like PayPal and eBay, I would not think that you would be someone who would be scammed by your partner. And as you say in your book, it doesn't matter where you're from, how you're raised or educated, or how intuitive you think you are, anyone can fall victim to a scam. And I think part of why I love that you've told this story is 'cause I think people look at you and go, wow, if it happened to her, it could happen to me. Yeah,

Tracy: A hundred percent. And I think before this happened to me, I would see those shows on a current affair. I'd read the Daily Mail. And I don't think those stories did us much justice, to be honest, because I think the imagery conjure up is of a lonely, middle aged woman sitting in her lounge room surrounded by cats, and suddenly she's transferred her life savings to her African prince that she met on the internet. And I'd hear those stories and I'd go, who? An idiot. That would never happen to me. I would never do that. And yet here I am, I'm a woman who lost $317,000 to a man I met on the internet who pretended to love me. So it's actually not that dissimilar, it's just we can't relate to those stories because they're not representative of who we think are the people that get scammed. But you're right, it can happen to anyone.

Mel: Yeah. Even though you met him on the internet, he was certainly in your life. Yeah. In a real physical way. So before we get to Max, tell me a bit about pre Max. And I know you tell this story in in your book, the Last Victim, which I'm gonna put in the show notes. And then I recommend everyone go out and purchase, not just for themselves, but purchase a copy for someone you love, because they absolutely need to read this as well. So tell me a bit about your story pre Max so we can get to know you more before we bring him into the picture.

Tracy: Yeah, I mean, I had a pretty stock standard Australian upbringing. I had brothers, I played a lot of sport. I had a great education. I went to university. I actually studied sports science at Uni. Mm-Hmm. And not long after I finished university, I got a job at the Olympic Stadium just before the Olympics, and that's where my career took off. And I just sort of stayed in marketing and went through finance marketing. I worked at a startup hedge fund. And then later in my career I worked for global tech brands. So Virgin, GoDaddy, eBay, and more recently Block. Yeah, an incredible career in marketing. 25 years I was married. I subsequently had a child and then got divorced. And I think at the stage of my life when I met Max, I'd been separated from my husband for about a year. And I was working really hard, you know, I was just getting my head around single parenting.

Tracy: My child was five, getting her to school, all the activities going into the city. This is pre Covid, so heading into the city every day, doing my big day in the eBay office, running a big team of people running campaigns, loving life. And I guess I just felt like I was ready to meet somebody and I didn't want another husband. My opportunity to have children was pretty much done. I was in my early forties. And so I just really wanted to meet someone who had similar interests and values to me. Someone who I could spend time just doing some simple things. So that's when I went online, because I was pretty aware that some awesome guy wasn't gonna fall out of my ceiling while I was watching MAFS on a Monday night

Mel: I wish

Tracy: I, oh my gosh. It was a jungle and it was just, yeah, because when I had gotten married, dating apps didn't exist. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So it was all very new to me. So I was navigating this world of sometimes quite a lot of disappointment and shock and like it took a lot of time. I thought it was quite distracting. And to be honest, it was slim pickings back in 2016.

Mel: I've got, girlfriends would say nothing's changed <laugh>.

Tracy: Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that.

Mel: But I guess what I found funny about your story is that girlfriends that are in the market now have names for their partners as well. So you called Max the slow burn? Yeah. At the time. So his name was Max Tavita. You swiped right on him, as you said, in your early forties. And I guess looking at him, having him described as a slow burn on paper, it didn't seem like someone that would go on to do what he did. So I guess looking back at him, can you see what Max did to groom you during that time of the slow burn from when you first met to when he first asked for that sum of money?

Tracy: Yeah, a hundred percent. And had he have come into my life like a whirlwind, knocked on my door and within two weeks said, Tracy hand over your superannuation and your shares and offer, go, I'll invest them. Of course I would've said bugger off. Like, I don't even know you. But he had been honing his confidence game for decades. And so he knew exactly what he needed to do. He was an incredible listener, number one. And number two, he was very, very good at shape shifting. And what I mean by that is like he literally just had to become the person that I wanted him to be so that I would trust and fall in love with him. And that took a lot of time because we spent a lot of time on the phone and on calls and texts and things. But because of my situation working really long hours and single parenting, I actually didn't have a lot of time to see him.

Tracy: And I would only see him when my daughter was with her dad. We built this relationship slowly, and it seemed like he was really respectful of that. He wasn't pushy, he didn't push me to get babysitters. And over this long period of time and just the cumulation of the conversations that we had, what he presented to me, I think Mel, like the way I describe it, it was like a movie. He created this movie and I was like, there were sets and scenes and characters that all came together over a long period of time that

Mel: When you say long period, what a 18 months?

Tracy: Yeah. We were together for nearly a year and a half. Mm-Hmm. But we didn't set up my self-managed super fund for nearly a year after I met him. That felt like a long period of time to me. Yeah. To kind of build this world that he created where he was a chief investment officer for a family office. There were Bloomberg screens set up in his apartment. I overheard countless conversations of him talking to his back office staff about trades he was making for the investment funds that he was working on and the families he was investing for. There were documents and reports that he would send me weekly. There were letters that I got out of his mailbox that were addressed to Max Tavita, and of course that's not his real name. So he'd set that up. There were the people that he introduced me to and the false reports that he had about the money that he was investing for me, there was so much detail and so much around it.

Tracy: It wasn't sort of like he said one thing and I just believed it. Yeah. It kind of created this world. And then you layer over the top of that what felt to me like a very intimate, a very respectful, a very caring relationship where he was, like I said, very respectful of my situation with my daughter, not pushy at all. And the time we did spend together, we had incredible conversations. Of course, he was a great listener. Mm-Hmm. And all he had to do was reflect back to me what I said I wanted for my future, and how I wanted my life to roll out and give that to me. And of course, I fell in love with him. So there was the emotional layer of the top two, which of course when you're wearing your rose colored glasses, all the red flags are just flags. Hmm. And he preyed on that. He leveraged emotion over a long period of time for his own financial gain.

Mel: It sounds like it was a slow burn, but he put a lot of work into that slow burn. Yeah. Like that's not creating and falsifying reports, creating fake letters, everything you've talked about. That's, as you said, it's not just someone turning around in a week and saying, Hey, Trace hand this over. This is a lot of work and a lot of effort.

Tracy: Yeah. It was a long con. And yeah. What I know now is that he put that amount of effort in with everybody. Mm-Hmm. Of course not everyone knew him as Max. Most people knew him as Hamish or some version of Hamish. They didn't know him as a chief investment officer for a family office. Others knew him as a barrister. Others knew him as a businessman. Like he had these different characters and personas for everyone based on what they needed or what they would be interested in. And he just doubled down and Yeah. A lot of effort. He didn't have a job, Mel. Like this was his job.

Mel: This was his job. And he worked hard at it. <Laugh>. Yeah,

Tracy: He did. And I mean, on some level, not to give him too much credit at all, but he was good in it. Incredibly intelligent, you know? Yeah. But I think you, you do anything, I mean, I've been working marketing for 25 years. I'm pretty good at it. Like you get good at something you've done for a long time, and he was just a master manipulator, a professional conman, and he took advantage of people's emotions.

Mel: What you know. Now, do you know if there's traits that Max showed that is common for other people that are either scamming with internet partners or conmen themselves? Or is this more, this is what I know that was presented to me.

Tracy: I think what I've learned is that the tactics that scammers use, whether they're kind of, it's this sort of intimate fraud to the level that I experienced, or whether you're being scammed by say a scamer compound that's running out of Southeast Asia. What these sort of situations are set up to do is to elicit emotion from the victim. Mm. And once they have the victim in an emotional state, you actually have less access to your logical thinking. And the emotions are typically fear, excitement, or love. Yeah. And once you have access to those emotions, your logical thinking is out the window in essence. And then they can get in and pray on you. You layer that with some situational vulnerability.

Mel: Yeah.

Tracy: And because we're humans, we're all gonna be vulnerable from time to time. And vulnerability isn't just looking for love on the internet. Vulnerable could be you've had a baby and you haven't slept for three weeks or three months. It could be you are a CEO of a global company and you're flying internationally across time zones and you're jet lagged. It could be that you are on the phone trying to fix something with your internet banking and doing an email at the same time. I mean, it could be a number of different things that make you vulnerable. Maybe your partner's just passed away and you're trying to deal with that and you don't have access to your logical thinking either. So heightened emotion coupled with situational vulnerability, and it is the perfect Petri dish for any scammer to get inside your bank account.

Mel: Yeah. I love that. It's that emotion. You are right. 'cause When I'm emotional, I don't think rationally like I, it just doesn't, it's like my emotion hijacks my decision making a lot of the time. Yeah. So, which would make it easier for someone to come in. Yeah. Max initially invested a smaller amount of money from you and told you that he doubled it. If he hadn't done that, and if he'd asked for you super straight away, do you think you would've been more inclined to say No?

Tracy: I'm not sure. I mean, probably not. Mm-Hmm. Because,

Mel: Because it still had that legitimacy, didn't it?

Tracy: It, yeah, it did. It was over a long period of time, there were just so many conversations. And he'd pepper the sort of the conversation over many, many months with his point of view about superannuation, superannuation funds and how much we get charged in fees and how their fees, and they take all our money in fees. And he had such strong opinions about things. And it wasn't just, he put this throwaway comment, he would back it up with, this is gonna sound like a little bit frivolous, but like monologues, like these conversations. They just went along for ages with all of the data, all of the background, all of the reasons why. And these go over a long period of time. And then you listen to all of the conversations around the money he's investing for other people and what's happening in the markets here, and how the political antics of Trump are impacting the economy. And it was just so deep in detail. But I think I probably still would've, to be honest.

Mel: Yeah. And I guess looking at the world he created for you, as you said, those sets that he created and those conversations where, I mean, if you talk to most people about superannuation one, it's confusing. They don't necessarily trust it. And fees are one of the things that even industry super funds talk about. So it easy to, like, that's a really easy hook to kind of get in and for someone to agree to as well. So as you said, he is smart with what he, he is pushed in with.

Tracy: Yeah.

Mel: But he suggested to you that you convert your super to an a self-managed super fund that he invested for you. So that's where he really took the largest part of money from you. And I found it really interesting with that when you told your friend Kath, she was quite concerned for you. And in your book you talk about Abby Ellin's book, Duped, which I love as well. Mm-Hmm. And in that book, she describes a survey that was conducted on people who'd been warned that they were deceived. And 90% of the 1300 respondents carried on with the relationship anyway, which she calls betrayal blindness. Mm-Hmm. I guess my question is, is that something that you experienced because Kath, one of your very good friends was concerned? And do you think it was betrayal blindness that made you go, no, no. This is Okay.

Tracy: I think it probably is a component of that. However, Kath had a feeling. Mm. There were no hard and fast pieces of data that said, this man isn't who he says he's or Kath had the his spidey senses. Yeah. And the way Greg Bearup, the journalist from the Australian who did the podcast described it, which I thought was fabulous, was like, in these situations, when you are in the relationship with someone, it's like being in the front row, an illusionist show, and he's the illusionist, and he's doing all the tricks. And it feels like magic. And you're believing everything you see because it's incredible. And yet, if someone is standing side of stage, they can see, they see it all happening. And of course

Mel: It's a beautiful analogy.

Tracy: So good. Right. And of course, Kath's side of stage. Yeah. And Kath is an incredibly curious person, and she will ask question after question after question. And now I didn't really talk about what I was doing with Max with anybody else, probably because nobody actually asked. And I mean,

Mel: Who asks about your super, who talks about money?

Tracy: Money is still a really difficult thing to talk about. Yeah. It feels private and sometimes it feels a bit icky. And this is part of why I talk about this, because we have to get over that. Because had I have had these conversations with more than one Kath with five cats, yeah, maybe it would've sunk in. But I think the thing, I mean, Kath was busy off trying to gather her own intelligence so that she could present me with something that basically I could look at. And without any doubt, believe what she was saying. But what I also know, Mel, is in talking to some of the like heads of fraud for some of the banks, I've been having lots of discussions. The amount of people, and the banks are doing some great work at the moment too, by the way, where they're actually trying to stop some of these scammed payments. They will call the victim and say, we believe this to be a scam. And what they're saying is the amount of people that go, no, no, it's not a scam. No, it's not. In fact, it's a great investment and you should be thinking about it too. So that's what I see as betrayal blindness too, is where

Mel: Yeah they double down.

Tracy: You're so convinced, you don't wanna admit you're wrong. Mm-Hmm. And I think there was a portion of that for me. I didn't have the information that made me, you know, of course, until he was arrested. But it's really complex. It's really layered. It depends how deep the relationship is with the perpetrator, I guess, and how much information you have at hand.

Mel: I don't know about you, but sometimes I wish there was an easy way, a silver bullet, a magical unicorn, a fairy godmother ready to grant me three wishes. I mean, think of all the miracle diets, fitness fads, promising a six pack in six weeks, or finance bros promising riches by following this easy formula. Do you believe a word of it?Well, the part that longs for a quick fix might be taken in, but you are smarter than that. Personally, what I believe in is consistency, educating myself, finding an expert to help me, surrounding myself with a community who are going to motivate me to keep going and make me feel like I can do it because they're doing it too or are further down the road than I am. That's exactly what we've created inside the My Financial Adulting Plan. If you feel like you're on top of your finances, you have a plan for this year that you're super comfortable with and have everything you need to make that happen, then just ignore this ad. But for the rest of you, make sure you check out my life-changing 12 week course or for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day. Head to the show notes to join the wait list for the next round. Or you might be lucky enough to find that the doors are open and you can join now.

Mel: If someone was listening and was concerned that their friend's being scammed, so essentially they're Kath watching at the side of stage, their friend being conned by the illusionist in the front row, do you think there's anything that they could say or do that would make their friend stop and think twice in hindsight? Is there anything that you think Kath could have done, or really it was a train that had left the station and that's where it was going?

Tracy: I mean, definitely had, I have had hard and fast data that said Mm-Hmm. What she believed to be true. And she didn't even have that data at that point. Yeah. To be fair. But I do think if you believe that someone in your life is being scammed, don't be afraid to have the conversation. Kath took me for breakfast one morning, and I wrote about this in the book. I've known this woman for 15, 20 years. She is the most stoic woman you've ever met. I never saw her cry until this one morning. She took me for breakfast and she held my hand. She's got tears streaming down her face. And she says, Trace, I'm just so worried about what's happening with you and Max. I listened to her, and it would've taken so much guts for her to do that. 'cause She was worried it was gonna ruin our friendship. Right.

Mel: Absolutely.

Tracy: She didn't wanna be right. Yes. You know, she actually wanted to be wrong. Yeah. Because she knew how much I was in love, and yet I have so much respect for her that she had

Mel: Good friend.

Tracy: The balls to go and do it and ask those tough questions. And it may not be something like, I think you're getting scammed. Go figure it out. It could be something like, do you have the logins? Are the investments in your name? Yeah. Have you checked whether that person has a financial services license? Here's a website link where you can go and check to see that they're legitimate, whether they have the qualifications to advise you on self-managed super, or whether there are any complaints or bans against that person. Have you checked these? Great question. Have you checked that? These are really good questions. Yeah. And it's almost like sowing the seed of doubt. Mm-Hmm. And what I do know is betrayal blindness is a great example. And what I've been speaking to some of the banks about is that the person will still probably think they're doing the right thing. Yes. But you will be able to sleep at night and you will be able to know that you've tried or help just give them a copy of my book and say, look, yeah,

Tracy: I'm sure it was fine. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, but I'd love you to read this book, or listen to this podcast, or whatever it might be. Yeah. Just sow that seed of doubt because none of us think that it's gonna happen to us. There are things you can do, I believe.

Mel: Well, max went on to ask for more money to invest. And I noticed that during the time you did start to ask for logins, you did start to ask for statements. You were really getting quite annoyed and insistent, but he was either evading or falsifying those statements. Did red flags or warning bells go off at that time? Or again, were you in that trust bubble so you weren't worried?

Tracy: I think I was persistent, but not persistent enough. Yes. Yeah. And had I been persistent and he would've pushed me away even more, or Give me more future, I'll give you that next week. Or when we get back from here, of course when I get home, I'll give it to you. It was all future focused. Had I really pushed and he got even more defensive or resistant about it, I would've sort of gone, oh, that's weird. There was a time where I really, really wanted to meet his family because he spoke about them so much. I overheard conversations and I was really pushing to meet them. And he kept pushing back and saying, no, we'll do that next week. We'll do that next month. Why do you need to meet them? I don't think after nearly a year and a half, it's unusual to wanna meet someone's family.

Mel: Absolutely.

Tracy: Of course, when I got a bit pushy about it, he came back. I know we are just different. There was always an excuse, and he always had a way around it. I think I could have been more persistent, and in retrospect, I gave away my financial security and power way too easily. I felt grateful, Mel, that someone wanted to help me with something.

Mel: You are not alone, Tracy. I can't tell you the number of women that I spoke to that feel exactly like that. And the difference between them and you is that they just happen to not be with a con men.

Tracy: And that's it. But what I say now, and I kind of joke about it, but it's not funny, is the women especially get someone to help you with your laundry. Get someone else to unpack the dishwasher. Don't give away your financial jobs, like double down on that and release yourself of some of the other things, because it's just not worth it.

Mel: Yeah. Can't agree more. You mentioned Greg Bearup. So Kath introduced you to him, who ultimately went on to record the Who the Hell is Hamish podcast?

Tracy: Yeah.

Mel: With you. I imagine there are a lot of people who have been scammed and don't go public because of the embarrassment and shame they're potentially feeling. Mm. How hard was it to tell your story beyond that podcast?

Tracy: It took me a long time. I was in a shame hole for over a year. I was embarrassed. I was so upset with myself. I felt so stupid. I felt like an idiot. I didn't want anyone to know. I thought it was gonna damage my career. Very few people kind of knew what had happened. And over the course of that year, I also didn't have many answers because of course, it was a legal matter that police were dealing with the investigation. The authorities couldn't really give me much more information. His friends and family wouldn't talk to me. I just got nothing. It just kind of compounded the shame because I actually didn't know. And then it was more than a year afterwards, I just woke up one morning and there was just something different about how I felt. There was something where I just felt a little stronger.

Tracy: I can't even put my finger on it, but I thought to myself, you know what? I'm gonna go talk to Greg and see what he's got to say. And when I met him, Kath came with me and I met him. And he's just such a wonderful, kind, empathetic, compassionate man. But he is also got a wicked sense of humor. <Laugh>. That really appealed to me

Mel: Uhhuh,

Mel: Because you know, you can laugh about these things exactly now, right? Yep. And it was not long after I met him, that Hamish's plea hearing was coming up where we were gonna find out what was gonna happen. And he said to me, do you want me to come? I said, yes, please. And he came. And then Kath and, another girlfriend came like My tiger moms wrapped around me. And that is where we got the statement of facts that day, which outlined the full extent of Hamish crimes, the 15 victims, how much he had taken under which circumstances.

Tracy: And it was in that moment that Greg and I were pouring over the document at a cafe afterwards, and Greg said, this is not a story for the weekend Australian. This is a podcast. And with that, he got the go ahead to go and investigate. And as he was doing that, the information that came back to me from Greg was just so instrumental in my healing because mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, suddenly I knew I wasn't alone. Yeah. And suddenly I knew there were people like Lisa Ho, oh, Lisa Ho's business advisors. There were people that were far more business savvy than me that were far more wise, far more mature. And they had been fooled and defrauded as well. And suddenly I just felt released of that shame. And then when I started talking about it, the amount of people that came to me, and so that's happened to me, that's happened to my family, that happened to my auntie. And I just couldn't believe it. 'cause I'd never heard a story like this before. And these were people I'd known 15, 17 years. And I thought, how is it? We've never had this conversation. Yeah. It's because we don't talk about money and we're ashamed about money that we've lost. Yeah. But how do we solve the problem if we don't talk about it, if we don't have the full story? And if we can't kind of release people of their shame so that something can be done.

Mel: Yeah. I would love nothing more that yours is not the only story we hear. I know yours is the amplification at the moment, and I hate that there are so many stories, but I hope it releases other people to feel that they can talk about theirs. But here's, the breadth of Max's scam, as you said, includes people like Lisa Ho the global amount is thought to be up to a hundred million potentially. Yeah. And I guess you've answered in that you, my question was just, does that make you feel better or worse because it's happened to so many others?

Tracy: Yeah. For me, it brought a lot of healing and meeting the other victims. And even in meeting Hamish's, ex-wife, Beck, who was a big part of the podcast, she didn't lose any money to him. But in meeting her, and she was the only other person I'd met that'd been in an intimate relationship with him, there were things I could talk to her about that I couldn't talk to anybody else. Yeah. And when we met each other, it was like we both felt really seen. She's an incredible woman. And these other people that I met were just beautiful humans as well. And some of the retirees were the ones that broke my hearts. And it was such a process to go through, and it's something I had to go through because it also put the pieces of the puzzle together for me. And our brains don't like unfinished stories. And I had a very, very unfinished story. And I wasn't getting any answers from Hamish, of course. So I had to put the pieces puzzle together and Greg helped that happen. And the other victims helped me do that too. So I felt a lot of healing through that process actually. Mm-Hmm.

Mel: I love the work of Brene Brown. I've talked about her a lot over the years. I think there's so much synergy in her work about shame and vulnerability and money. For me, as soon as I read Daring Greatly, I just went, oh, we need to be talking about this book. And I know you referenced her work in your book, but when I read your story, I thought about her quote that if you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially. Secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and bounce it with empathy, it can't survive. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And I guess if someone's listening and has been the victim of a scam and maybe hasn't told someone that story yet, what would you say to them? What could they do to move on and maybe find that empathy and that release of shame? What are the things you've done since that you found most of it?

Tracy: Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me was accepting that had happened. That was the first step. It was what it was. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. He was a criminal. He stole my life savings. And I was likely never to see it again. I had to accept that I had to give myself an incredible amount of self-compassion because in that first year or so afterwards, I was not very kind to myself. And it's fair to say I took a hit for that. And even say now, there is really not anything that anyone could say to me about what happened to me that I haven't already said to myself in the worst possible, most disgusting, despicable way. And I had to get to a place where I replaced those. You're an idiot conversations in my head with, he was a professional. He has been doing this for 30 years.

Tracy: He's done it to a lot of other people. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you are not an idiot. You're an intelligent person and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, that's not to say there aren't things I would've done differently. Of course. So I had to really accept that and provide myself with self-compassion. Mm-Hmm. And then the next thing I think that's really important in these moments is just taking agency of your life. Like, I had a choice. Do I sit in the shame bubble for however many years and just let it ruin my life? Or do I accept what's happened and go, you know what Trace you can rebuild. You can make money. It's gonna be okay. You can work on your mindset. You can work on your mental health. You have a child to look after. You have a life to live.

Tracy: There was sort of moments in that time where I was like, does he win? Or do I win? Yeah, I wanna win. I wanna win at life. He can do whatever he wants to do. I wanna win. And then of course, there's so many points of action that you can take that are personal to yourself. For some people, it's getting more sleep. For others, it's getting the professionals in. I spoke about getting a financial advisor because the worst thing was not that I didn't trust other people, it was that I didn't trust myself anymore. I'd lost so much self-confidence. And so I built a group of people and professionals around me that could build me back up in moments where I couldn't do it for myself. So a psychologist. I still have a mindset coach today. I've got a financial advisor that I still have.

Tracy: And I was in such a state with my finances. I had my monthly income. Yeah. And it's not lost on me that I had that. I had a great job. And I doubled down because it was my only financial lifeline left. I worked with this financial advisor that I found and she visioned up my life together with me and said, what do you want your life to look like in two, five and 10 years time? And we did it. And she held me by hand. She said, Trace, you're gonna be okay. If you do what we say, you are gonna be okay. And I'm very disciplined. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I did what we said. And I've rebuilt financially. And then of course emotionally that's taken a lot longer. I exercise 'cause I love that I volunteer because it makes me feel good about myself. I have a gratitude practice.

Tracy: And then I guess the last thing is I've found purpose in this pain. And I know that sounds a little bit trite, but it had to count for something. Agree. That's why I wrote the book. That's why I did the podcast. And I think for anyone going through feelings of shame or disappointment in themselves, I would start with self-compassion. I would talk to someone. I'm available if anyone wants to chat, I get spoken to like so many people reach out to me. And I'll just tell one story. I was sitting at dinner one night and I was writing the book and I'd done the podcast and it was a 75-year-old woman and she was sitting across from me and her children were on either side of us. And she told me a story how she lost her divorce settlement in her forties. And the children were sort of teenagers at the time.

Tracy: And she made a decision. There'd be no tears at the dinner table. And she wasn't gonna tell anybody, but she hadn't told anybody for 35 years. She had tears streaming down her face. And I said, my God, why haven't you spoken about this? And she said, I was so ashamed. I just wanted to get on with life. And I thought to myself, if in telling my story, I can help people release those feelings. Because once exactly like what Brene Brown says, shame can't survive in the dark. Yeah. And like most wounds, they dries out beautifully in the sunlight. If you can talk to someone, then that's a great starting place. That was a very long answer for you.

Mel: No, I loved it so much. And I must admit, I read that story of the 75-year-old in your book, and I went and told that to my husband. It really struck me that she lived with that all of that time. Yeah. And just how healing it would've been to say something. Yeah. But I think what I love from you, that answer and that incredible answer is that you took action. Yeah. And you didn't just take action to, I'm gonna make myself feel better. You took action so holistically, including taking financial action to where, my guess from what I've read and from what I'm hearing you say is that you will end up being in the same place and a whole lot better from everything you've done. But you've had to make sacrifice to get there. You had to decide, well, I can't do holidays, I can't do this, I can't do that. It wasn't just, well, I've got an income now. That'll just be it. Yeah. You really had to work hard on yourself, on your financial self, like the whole picture.

Tracy: Yeah, a hundred percent. And also invest in having people around me to help me do that. Because I knew I couldn't do it on my own. I wasn't in a strong enough position to do that. I'm not embarrassed to admit that. And it's made all the difference. And I fully appreciate that financial advice. Isn, inaccessible for everybody. But for me, it was something that, like you said, I sacrificed other things to be able to do it because it was so important for me to get my financial future secure. You know, I'm a single mom. Like there is no backstop. Yeah. And I wanted a great future. And I don't doubt that it probably looks a little bit different to what it would otherwise, but that's okay. I think if you work, like I'm a hard worker, you can always make money. I rent my apartment out on Airbnb when I'm away. I do cash reward. I do all the things and I hustle for it. Right. And it's possible.

Mel: Yep, agree.

Tracy: And it may not look like it was going to look previously, but it's gonna be okay. And the most important thing for me was not the money. 'cause I think you can always make money if you want to. Yeah. It was getting my head right and seeing the world in a way that I wanted to see it that wasn't tainted by my experience.

Mel: Yeah. Agree. Max or Hamish is eligible for a parole with good behavior. I think I read in 2026.

Tracy: That's right. Two years.

Mel: Do you think that he's done enough time? And how much do you think he should do?

Tracy: Oh goodness. Crimes of this type don't ordinarily get such big sentences. It's very, very difficult to prosecute fraud. So we were lucky in a lot of ways. We were lucky with the sentence, lucky is the word. I think it was a good strong sentence. I do get asked this question a lot. Like, I don't know whether there's been rehabilitation or not. Mm-Hmm.

Mel: And you'll never know. Yeah. You

Tracy: Never know. The only person that knows the answer to that question is Hamish. And it's up to him what he does. I think at some point he will have to integrate back into the world. I think what is difficult to reconcile is that he is never had another job. This has been his career, his whole life. So I don't know how that happens for somebody like him. But again, I don't spend too much time worrying about it. That's up to him. Yeah. My job is to work on myself and make sure I'm in a really good position and I've got a really good life going forward and and using this experience to educate and help others not go through the same thing I went through.

Mel: Final question, Tracy. If someone was listening and their spidey sense is going off for themselves or someone that they love, what would be your thoughts? Or what's some things that they can do? If you could phone yourself back, what would you do?

Tracy: Oh my goodness, there's so many. And I've got a three page resource list on my website with a list of downloads.

Mel: Awesome, I'll put that in the show notes.

Tracy: I'll send you the link. But it's everything from do reverse image search. If you are not sure if the person that you are with is who they say they are, if you've got a little inkling, there's some great websites where you can put in an image and it pops back with a bunch of other things. Like I said, go to the, and look at the ASIC advisor registry, look and see if there are any bans. There is an incredible website where you can look up domains. And if you get an email from someone that you think is asking you to invest or putting your money here or whatever, you can cut and paste the domain and URL and put it into a who is domain lookup. And you can see whether that domain is actually legitimate or not. I would say take a beat.

Tracy: Just take a breath. Don't act. A lot of these things, they try and get you with urgency. Like you're gonna miss out or quick, you've gotta do this, or you won't have access. Just take a breath. And finally, I mean, there's so many. But finally I would say talk about money. Talk about it. Just bounce it off someone. Bounce it off. A partner, a parent, a friend, someone at work. Don't be embarrassed to talk about money. 'cause Quite often other people see the things that you don't or they may just ask a question. But I think if you've got that little spidey sense inside you, just be really curious and be boldly curious. Ask the question. Ask it again. Ask it again. And hopefully you'll get the answer that you need.

Mel: Talk to your friends about money <laugh>.

Tracy: Yeah, talk about it!

Mel: Just make it something else we talk about. Thank you so much for chatting to me. I cannot thank you enough for having the bravery to push past that shame all those years ago and decide to be on the podcast, to write the book and to talk so much about what it is now. 'cause I cannot tell you the lives that you were changing from having that conversation. So thank you.

Tracy: Thank you so much. You're so generous.

Mel: If you enjoyed this episode, we would love it if you subscribed and give us a review, then make sure you come and play with me on Insta. I'm at @melbrowne.money Remember there's an E on the end of Browne. I'm one of those fancy Browne's, and don't forget to check out the show notes for even more ways you can work with me to transform your finances.

 

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