Scammers are targeting us at our most vulnerable time and AI is helping them

I was gobsmacked. I spoke to you on the Tuesday, Thursday afternoon, there's this lovely courier

man at me back door with a parcel for me.

All I know is we've been 24 hours mate. You had it sorted after five weeks of hell,

raising hell. Mate, I can't thank you enough.

Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

Hoping Australians would take questions for over 15 years, the EFT and podcast would

Trev along. Real Australians, real questions every week.

You can text Trev now. Thanks to Vodafone on 0477 657 657.

Great to have you company on another episode of the EFT and podcast.

We are live in London this week and we're here with Samsung as a guest of Samsung

for their unpacked event later this week.

Off-stop my head. Thursday morning your time. A couple of days away and I'm kind of interested

here because like we've been talking foldables for so long with Samsung, 67 years.

But it feels like the year of the foldable, right? Because of Apple. Like that's the

unwritten weirdness of this week is we're talking about it because of their competitor.

I'm not, let's be real. I'll be inside baseball with you here. If Apple hadn't leaked their form

factor, which we know to be kind of passport size, open up fold, would Samsung have

created this rumoured wide version of theirs? And if they didn't, would this week be a very

big struggle exposure wise? Because I've said to people at Samsung sometimes, you know,

we've got to make sure that you understand that it's not a guarantee that an announcement is

news. A new version of a product isn't always going to be news. And especially now that we've

reached peak smartphone and we're almost at the point of peak foldable. So yeah, I'm like,

I don't know what the fold eight is going to be, but let's just ignore the wide. But let's say the

fold eight is the same width and form factor and all that kind of stuff. And it's just got some

extra AI or extra camera power. Same with the flip. Like is it enough to really push and buy

into it being a big deal? That's what I struggle with. And I say that about iPhone 18.

So if Apple does not, so weird thing is if Apple does not release a fold this year, then the story

is they didn't release a fold. But if there was no rumour of Apple releasing a fold this year as

strong as it was, and they just came out with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, well the story

probably be why didn't they release the 18, but like they're incremental these days. So we are

really at a point where the software is driving things. And that's why iOS 27 is a story, but

that wasn't a dub dub. So it's a it's a fascinating thing to me. The need for innovation, the need

for change to drive the story that is there's something new and cool. But anyway, we'll find

out later this week. I think the odds are very strong that we're looking at a flip eight, a fold

eight and a fold eight or fold wide 8858 fold wide. I don't know what it's

going to be called. It'd be wild, wild if they call it the fold eight ultra, given the rumours

that iPhone ultra is their name. Wouldn't it be wild if Samsung went, we're calling it the Samsung

Galaxy Z fold eight ultra.

That'd be hilarious. I would laugh. I would laugh a lot because there's no way Apple could call it

the iPhone ultra. I don't think they can call the iPhone fold either, so they've got fun and games on

the hands anyway. A couple calls today about Wi-Fi and and and phones, but we're also going to talk

security, internet security and keeping yourself safe online. Scammers, hackers, AI,

it's a it's a very prevalent issue. We're going to talk to Lynette Owens, who's from Trend Life,

formerly Trend Micro, about some of the research they've done and what they've found

just about scams and our susceptibility to scams at certain ages and styles and you name it.

All that to come on the EFTM podcast. Tech cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM podcast with

Trevor Long. You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 0477657657.

Great to have you company and love to hear from you. Anytime you can just get in touch,

as Dixie says. Ian's online today, Ian. How are you? Mate, really well. What can I do for you?

I sent you a message a while ago about the fact that even though we pay a fortune for our phones,

Samsung still own them. Okay, explain. Well, this is quite a few years ago now. I had an issue

with one of the updates that they sent out and it changed a hell of a lot of things on my phone

and I mean virtually everything. I had to ring their help people. They were very good and I said

to the guy I was talking to, why the hell is this going on? And he said, well, we own the phones.

And when you think about it, first of all, my phone is locked in with Optus to start with.

Secondly, there is what we call bloatware, a hell of a lot of things that are actually put on by

Samsung and they can't be got rid of. And it's the same with Google. There's a lot of stuff that

they put on that you can't get rid of. I disagree on that. I think if you bought a pixel phone,

you'd be blown away by how much less software is pre-installed on that. It's a very vanilla

version of Android. Well, it's the same thing. You've still got a million things on. I've got

a heap of stuff on my phone that I never use and this is the stupidity of it. If we're supposed

to be paying like $1,000 for a phone, why don't we own it? Well, first and foremost,

you absolutely own the phone. They can't take the phone from you. They physically don't own the phone.

There's nothing ownership-wise that Samsung has over you, but the software that you are choosing to

buy into by buying a Samsung phone. In the same way that Apple don't own anyone's iPhone, but

every year they release a brand new version of iOS. They don't own your phone. They're just

releasing updates to their software. New features, new capabilities, also most importantly,

security updates. Now, you don't have to upgrade your phone. You absolutely are not required to

and you can turn off all auto updates on your phone. But if you do that, you are firstly at

risk of the phone not working at some point because there may be updates that keep it

properly connected to the telco networks who may change their settings. Secondly,

you may miss out on security updates, which may make you quite vulnerable to hackers and other

viruses. And thirdly, you'll miss out on any new features, which sounds like you don't care about,

which is totally fine. But the thing is, they don't own your phone. Let's be very clear. They don't

own your phone. Well, on 74, my very first computer was a Commodore 64. What a cracker. I love that

device. I talk about it so much. I've still got one. You know, you can buy Commodore 64 again

from the Commodore 64 company. I heard that, yes. And you know what? They're releasing a phone.

You should buy the Commodore 64 flip phone. It's a simple flip phone that does have a couple of

apps. It has WhatsApp and I think maps on it. But you know, maybe that's the perfect phone for

you if you don't need all the bloatware. Listen, I'm still sitting on my S10. I'm quite happy with

that. I don't need all the fancy stuff like my kids do. Trust me, the Commodore 64 flip phone

is not fancy. Yeah, I'm quite happy with what I've got. As I said, it's just the fact that there

is so much stuff in there that you just can't get rid of unless you know something you can't get rid

of. Hang on, I have to go through the list. That's getting technical now.

Now you're putting me on the spot, aren't you? But is it an app like or is it something that

happens on the phone? No, they're actual Samsung apps. And some of them you can actually

shut down, but you can't delete them. Right. And this is where I reckon it's wrong. You

should not be able to, well, you shouldn't have to be able to put up with all that sort of rubbish.

Look, I think that what some super nerdy people would say to you is there are ways of deleting it.

You need to do what's called and this sounds... Unlocking it. Well, it's even worse. It sounds

very crude, but trust me, it's a real thing. You need to go to the root of the phone, yes,

which basically takes away all of the bloatware. But in the end, I just think the complexity of

doing that is far beyond anything that you truly need to worry about. But that's it. It's

frustrating to you. The thing is, you've got an S10. That's had a great life and if it's still

working for you, I'd be loving the fact that Samsung owned the phone in your words because

it's lasted you that long. Oh, look, I don't have a problem with the company and the quality of their

goods. I just did not like the fact that some Turkey turned around and said to me, look,

we still owned the phone. What the hell? Yeah, well, let's be clear. That bloat's a Turkey

because that is 100%. Like we need to be clear, he was being flippant, I'm assuming, because

there's just absolutely no ownership at all involved in Samsung going forward.

Yeah, exactly. Well, mate, enjoy the S10 because it's a great phone.

Yes. Here we go. AOD Notify.

An AOD. Is it an app? Yep.

I mean, I've never heard of it and I think you absolutely should be able to delete that.

Well, it says forced stop. That's it. If you push and hold the app, you can't delete it.

No, there are other ones. As I said, that's just the first one that I saw.

I actually don't think that's a standard Samsung installed app. I think that's come to your phone

another way. I think the thing is that they actually install a lot of these apps as well.

Mate, who's that? That's why I don't update anything.

Trust me, Samsung didn't install that app. That is not an app that Samsung uses. It's a

notification light app. They simply don't. I'd stand by that statement for a lot. I don't think

for a second that Samsung installed that app. I actually think, to be honest with you, I think

there's something else on your phone which is installing these apps. I think you may have not

a virus but a malware app that is installing these things. No. Because, mate, AOD Notify

ain't something Samsung puts on their phones when you buy them new or when they do software updates.

At all. Hang on here. There's a feature on your Galaxy phone that lets you view the time, date,

notification, missed calls and other stuff when your screen is off.

Yeah. Is that what it says about AOD? Yeah. That's on the Samsung site. No, don't need that.

Yeah. Mate, honestly, the best thing you could do for your phone today is back up your photos

and contacts and I would do a factory reset of that phone. I would do a factory reset and find

out what is truly built into that phone. But I bet you any money there's a bunch of other

bloatware apps that are on there for other reasons, not Samsung's.

I actually use several apps to check my phone on a continuous basis

for anything and everything. Are they Norton, Trend Micro or McAfee?

I don't use Norton for the simple reason that it has a massive footprint

in whatever they do. McAfee, I don't have a problem with. I use Geeky Security, AVG Virus,

Antispy and what the hell's the other one? There's a huge chance one of your

Antispy apps is actually a spy app. No, I check them out way beforehand, mate.

Part of my hobby is computer security. That's awesome. But what you're missing is the fact

that somehow on your phone is an app called AOD Notify, which Samsung didn't put on your phone.

So if you want my advice, which you asked me for, I would format that phone. I would do

a factory reset on that phone today and I would cautiously install any apps you need

and then see what apps are actually on it from the start. I bet you any money AOD Notify is not

one of them. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. As I said, I have actually had apps installed

with an update from Samsung and that's a fact. I'm not doubting that, Ian, but what I'm doubting

is you've given me one example and it is not such an app. Absolutely not.

Well, it's registered on their website. Yes, mate. Anyone can install an app on their website. Anyone

can provide apps to the Samsung store just like they can in the Apple store. But what I'm saying

is how it got on your phone is not because of Samsung. So you're blaming Samsung for all these

updates and owning your phone, but I actually think it's something you did to the phone. I think

it's an app you installed on the phone. That'd be my guess. Yeah.

Anyway, if you want my advice, format the phone and see for the next week what's actually on your

phone. You might be blown away. All right, no problems. I'll have a think about that. Good luck,

buddy. No worries at all. All right. Thank you very, very much for that. You have a good day.

You too, mate. Have a good one. Cheers. Take care. So yeah, I mean, I don't know about you, but that,

yeah, I just, and look, I might be wrong. Someone, please correct me if you've got AOD

Notify on your phone from Samsung that they installed, yada, because

I've never heard of it and I've used plenty of Samsung phones. If they were installing that

by default, I reckon I would have seen that app. It's a notification app. They would build that

into the operating system, but it's an S10. It's old. Maybe there's another reason, but to have

multiple security apps monitoring your phone, and it's like people saying, I would have a cleanup

app on my Mac. It's going to be malware. I can tell you right now, it's going to be malware.

I don't know. I try. I try.

Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years, the EFT and podcast with TravelOn.

And always love to help you with your tech questions. If you've got a question about

technology in your life, if you're looking to buy something new,

or perhaps you've bought something new and you're struggling with it, happy to help wherever we

can, you can get in touch, send me an Ask Trevor request through the EFTM app. You can go to

EFTM.com or you can send me a text message or a WhatsApp to 0477657657. Now, a topic you're

well familiar with me talking about here is cybersecurity and keeping ourselves safe in a

digital world. And it's something we could talk about every week. And it's something that never

ceases to amaze me in terms of the ways, the means, and the efforts that scammers will go to

and it's interesting to me that you could almost call this a scam as Christmas time,

you know, end of financial year, the finances, we're thinking about tax time. There's a lot

of moments in life that scammers are there to take advantage of and then they're savvy, they're

smart. They're one step ahead of us as well. Plus, you'll be fascinated to see just who are taking

the biggest digital risks. So to talk about that and more from trend life, formerly Trend Micro,

Lynette Owens, Vice President of Consumer Education and Marketing joins me. G'day, Lynette.

G'day, Trevor. How are you? Great. Thank you for joining me because this is,

I'm sure it's a topic that, given your job, you talk about a lot. But even in social

circumstances, I'm often surprised how some people are just unaware of these things. Maybe they

never thought it could happen to them. I had an aunt tell me she was scammed out of $7,000

recently and I was just blown away by that. And the circumstances are ones that maybe I could

have helped her foreshadow or foresee. But let's talk about the time of year stuff, you know,

tax time. It is the perfect time for a scammer because we all want to get our tax return. We

want to be on time with the government. That's, I guess, the reason the scammers are thinking,

let's start targeting these Aussies with scam ideas.

You're right. Actually, there are actually a number of moments, big moments in our lives,

that we've started to notice scammers targeting people all over the world, including in Australia.

And tax time is no different from one of those, but there were some other moments that,

in a recent study that we did of 10,000 consumers around the world,

1,000 of them being from Australia. And, you know, we've also seen this pattern that people

impersonating businesses or the government tends to be at the top because we are more prone to

pay attention when those messages come through. We're trusting.

Yes. Yes, we are. So unfortunately, the scammers, they're not just taking chances,

they are full on very well run businesses. So they understand their target markets very well,

and they're going to take advantage of those times when we might be a little bit more vulnerable,

might have our defences down a little bit. And tax season, other moments are when we're buying,

making very big investments or purchases. And one of those is like a property purchase,

for example. You talk about the number of people who see this happen. One in five Australians have

been scammed or know someone close to them who was scammed while making a major purchase,

like a car or property. And I guess that goes to that trust in, it might be the message comes

from a conveyancer or a real estate agent or a car company dealership. You know,

people, a scammer doesn't need to know much about what you're about to purchase to become

part of that process. And that's what they do. They insert themselves, don't they, in that purchase.

That's correct. But it's not just the fact that they're once again trying to impersonate

a business because they're well aware that you're in the middle of this transaction.

It's also that they're catching us at a moment when our anxiety might be a little bit higher.

We also, we don't make big purchases like that very frequently. So we're probably going to be

engaging with a party we've never met before. So, you know, we don't know necessarily that that's

not in fact who they say they are. So yes, unfortunately, that was the top of the list.

Big investments, big purchases at the top of the list of the

moments when people have been scammed. I think the other that's surprising,

but we're in a moment in time where a lot of people are shifting jobs.

Maybe you're fine in your job, but you're investigating another one. Maybe you've

lost your job and you're looking for a new one. But that actually was number two on our list.

18% of people, yes. And so again, it's a, if you're out of work and you think you're on the

hook for a new job, you're excited. If you get an email that says, just send us this paperwork,

which might be your identity, you know, it could be anything as simple as that, couldn't it, that

begins the process of a scam business. And that's a really good point you make. These are not,

you know, kids in a basement. These are businesses that are out there targeting people,

essentially professionally, in their most vulnerable times in some cases.

This is correct. And actually, in addition to them being very well-run businesses,

there's another, there's another power at play here, and that is AI.

AI has made the cybercriminal enterprises a lot more effective, efficient,

a lot more personalized and targeted in, in their, in their work. So all they need to know

is perhaps in a data breach of some kind, perhaps with a bank, they realize there are people applying

for loans and mortgages and things like that. So they know all of, they know your name and they

know that you probably are looking for a house. So now that's all they need to know. They can

target you with messages saying, you know, there's a piece of information missing. You're going,

you're not going to get the house if you don't reply by a certain period of time.

Again, playing on that, playing on that real sensitivity.

Yes. AI has made it easier because in writing that message, the telltale signs have disappeared.

There's no more misspellings or incorrect grammar.

It feels like just years ago we were saying that's one of the great things you can look for,

you know, poor English, poor grammar. But yet here we are now, we've empowered ourselves with

this unbelievable thing where I can write an email or an article and say, can you properly spell

check this and give me any suggestions? But so can the scammers. And that's what they're doing.

It's part of their workflow. It is 100% part of the workflow. And, and it's not just using AI to,

to target you and to remove those barriers to the telltale signs anymore. They're also

in the name of workflow. They're also starting to automate a lot of these processes.

Building AI agents to say, what we used to see at Trendlife was somewhere in the world,

a new kind of scam was taking hold. And then over time, we noticed they were testing it there.

And then they moved to another country because somehow they figured out the secret to success.

We are no longer seeing that. The time has contracted. They're able to now target multiple

places in the world at once, because they don't need to test as long, because they can, they can

execute many of them at once, get the feedback right away and improve their process and move on.

All of the reasons that we want to use AI ourselves, but in their case, it's for a criminal enterprise.

And essentially, they're probably having a better hit rate too. Isn't it,

isn't it weird for us to be talking about scammers as frankly, as real people, because

they're disgusting. But, you know, in a business, you, you look at, you know, outreach, you're trying

to get new leads or clients and you have a success rate on a campaign and that kind of thing.

They would be doing the same. They would be going, well, since we've implemented this process of AI,

we're getting now a 20% hit rate on this email or this, this outreach. And they would be improving

their business using these tools. That is correct. And, you know, what's interesting,

another thing about AI that came across in this research was we actually asked people,

when you're in these big life events, you're planning the new purchase, maybe you're planning a

wedding, maybe you're sending a kid off to college or university or whatever the big life moment was,

do you actually use AI to help you? And 38% said they did, which was a lot higher

number than I would have thought because in order for AI to help you through those moments,

you're probably giving it a lot of information about your life, about what it is that you're

going through. And one of the biggest concerns we have when you tie this back to cybercrime

is not, it's the risk that we put, that we actually take ourselves

that downstream could end up in the hands of a cyber criminal, right? So we are in the middle of

another study right now and can't wait to share all of that with you. But one of the things we're

starting to see in the early results, we simply ask people, are you sharing personal information

to AI? Whether it's through big life moments or any other moments, and a lot of people are saying

they do. And I think it's very surprising, stunning to me, that what we seem to not do with social

media, everybody knows now to be much more careful about what you're sharing on social media,

we're not applying the same behavior. Isn't that funny? We've actually had success in getting people

to stop oversharing because we essentially educated them. And I say we because it's companies like

you at TrendLife and me through my outlets that we've tried to slowly educate people on

little things like school uniforms in photos and things like that and not posting when you're on

holidays post when you're back, all these little things. But then what we're not thinking about is

which AI am I using and how much information I'm handing over to it and where's that information

going? And while there may be some trustworthy systems and places you can work with that,

there's plenty of people who are using free, simple tools that may be add-ons and just

front ends to another system that is then scraping your information. And goodness knows what we're

handing over and if we're doing it without any thought because we think it's so cool,

that's probably where we start to really bring ourselves undone.

I do and I worry about people of all ages not realizing a couple of things. Number one,

just because the AI chatbot responds to you as if it's a real person, it's very interesting

having used multiple and I'm sure you have too. They all have their personalities, right?

But and so I can see how it's very enticing to continue the quote-unquote conversation about

whatever's troubling you at the moment or whatever it is that you're trying to work through.

But that's one of the issues we worry about is that people really should think this is

still just a tool, you're still giving it data, the data is moving somewhere, being collected

somewhere, being stored somewhere. And they don't realize that in not in all cases, but in some

cases, you can opt out of your prompts being used to train the model.

Yes, but people don't realize that's a setting. But the second thing is any of them and I won't

name them, but you probably know who they are. Any of them that really need to make money by

selling advertising on them, they're going to make it either not possible for you to opt out

or make it difficult for you to find how to opt out. That's the business model, isn't it?

Oh, absolutely. Right. It's exactly the same path that we're going down right now that we did

five to 10 years ago with social media. Let's talk about demographics quickly.

I want to talk about young people, but I first want to talk about older generations. There's a

simple stat here that says Australians over 65 are the least likely to check carefully

website URLs. Now, I can tell you my mum lives five hours away and I drove to see her on the

weekend and she was questioning me about her phone. So I went, okay, this is simple,

handed over and I installed TrendLife mobile on there because I've got multi-device access.

So I was able to just add her to my account basically. And the first thing I did was enable

the the safe web as well as app checking, things like that, because you know what?

I can't be with her and she rings me and says, I got this text message. I can't see it because

I'm not there. She doesn't know how to screenshot and send it to me. So it's a really simple thing

to say, do you know what? It's a it's a level of a piece of mind that you can bring to yourself

if you're over 65 or your parents, if they're over 65, to just know that even if they do get

some sort of weird email text message or whatever, that web protection can exist on a smartphone.

I think still so many people don't realize your smartphone can be protected by internet security

software. It absolutely can, but I will even offer you something more powerful than

that. Not too long ago, we released a feature called Family Circle and this exists in our scam

check tool. So basically, if you have scam check and your mother has scam check, there is a way in

which if she is starting to be targeted and continues to engage with somebody who's actually

not have doesn't have her best interest in mind, you will be alerted. Oh, wow, that's amazing.

Yeah. And and you know, I think it's something the reason we felt it was very important is because

of exactly what you're describing. So many of us adult children who worry about people younger

and older in our lives, we can't be everywhere all the time. And we noticed that technology in

general doesn't design around families. They design around individuals. So we're the tech support.

So yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. I'd like to be kept in the loop when my mom's messaging

some random new person and they've they've started asking for personal details and make

exactly links. But then the education part then leads into the younger younger end of the spectrum

where, you know, we're talking about young Australians, 18 to 24, not really checking

whether there's legitimacy in organizations. We're talking about super young people using AI.

So there's so much to be done to educate the next generation as well.

There is. And I think what we always say at trend life is that no matter what the technology is,

and in this day and age with AI, there will be no way it will it is becoming harder with

just your the naked eye or your hubris or your confidence. It's not going to be enough for you

to recognize when you actually are being targeted. And the criminals know that. So the combination

of education and good tech tools is the best approach to staying safe online. With regard

to the younger Australians. Yeah, I mean, we see this across all ages. Everyone thinks

I can recognize this scam. There's no way that that will get past me. Right. But the problem,

as I said before, it's becoming harder. It's more targeted, more personalized. So, you know,

even in our data, you know, I think very few younger Australians are even using any kind of

protection at all. I was just going to read that stat out. One in four don't use internet security

or antivirus software on their PC. 59% do not use protection on their personal mobile device. I

think it is the great unknown out there or the great uneducated. We need people to know that

it's their mobile where you're actually almost more vulnerable because it's so personal and you are

more likely to be flippant with a message that comes through as opposed to an email on your

computer. So that 59% of Australians more broadly aren't using protection on their mobile device

is staggering to me. That is correct. And I think if anything, if anyone takes anything away from

this, it's please go and do that. I mean, it's very possible. You're already paying for it

because you're protecting your laptop or your desktop. You probably bought us a description

that covers multiple devices. So just take care of it for sure. But I think the other thing too is

that with mobile devices, we are doing more of our life on it. We're buying things. We're using

Apple Pay. We're browsing and then we're purchasing. We're communicating. If anything, it's the one

thing you should protect the most because you're using it more of the hours of your day.

I think there's a lot of takeouts from this. I think one, scammers are smart and professional

and we need to be just on a higher alert than ever. AI is as powerful for a scam as it is for us.

Protection is still key and protecting your mobile device is a big part of that. And we're

all going to go away. I'm going to go away quite intently and do some research into the family

circle because that is going to give me just another level of peace of mind. So we will

investigate that and play around with that over the weeks and months ahead. That's a great insight

for me, let alone everyone else listening. Lynette, lovely to talk to you. Thank you for the

efforts you're undertaking and the research you're doing. It's funny because it's not just

about having the software that helps us. It's about doing the research that helps us understand why.

That is correct. And thank you so much for having me.

Great to have you company. I'd love to hear from you. 0477657657. Text or WhatsApp,

whatever works for you. Vicks on the way. Hi, Trev.

Mate, really good. What can I do for you?

Trev, I've been having a bit of trouble with my internet since we transferred across to NBN.

The speed seems to have gone down. They relocated to the front of the house

where we used to have it in the middle in the office. When did you transfer to the NBN?

In May. What were you using before that?

ADSL. Where do you live? In Brisbane. You've been on ADSL until now.

Yeah. Really?

There's not been a problem. I feel like they cancelled the ADSL 10 years ago.

Are you sure you weren't on NBN just using Fiber to the node like using an old phone line and

you've now upgraded to a different sort of NBN, Fiber? We were upgraded in what we were on before.

You just used to work and since they transferred it to the NBN,

I've been having issues. I complained a few times.

Which telco are you with? Telstra.

Interesting. Okay. Are you paying more now that you're on the NBN?

I've actually just upgraded yesterday to the 500 NBN.

Right. But I've got a better upload, but my download is no different.

How are you testing that on what device and what app?

It's on the Telstra on my iPad.

So the NBN box is now at the front of the house?

Yes. Is that correct? So here's what I think and I feel like I'm going to need to check.

But I think that you've had the NBN for probably 10 years through Telstra, but you had what we

call Fiber to the node, which is essentially NBN via the old phone line. So you haven't had to have

any work done in your house that was using your plugged in where the phones used to plug in, right?

And I think what they've done is either you didn't ask for the higher speeds, did you?

No. So some people get upgraded because they asked for higher speeds, but I reckon maybe

they've decided that your area has just got really slow internet and they've decided to upgrade the

whole area, let's assume. And so they've done the Fiber install. So you've now got Fiber all the way

to the home or maybe to the curb, but bottom line, you've been upgraded to a different NBN technology,

which is why the NBN box is now down the front of the house. Now, is the NBN box,

is there an NBN box and a Telstra box? Oh, that's the question.

Is it like in the garage or? No, no. It's in our formal lounge room.

Right. Okay. Yep. Okay. We've got a two-story home and I've found that where we used to have the

modem for the internet was in the office. Yes. And it was in basically central,

more central. But I find that my wife's weight has not been as good. Yep.

And when you're trying to download something, it just scrolls and scrolls.

Right, right, right. Let's have a quick look. Let's have a look behind that couch.

Well, it's almost there. What have we got? No, we've still got the

generation two. I think there's another little thing in the wall.

Right. So there is a Telstra box there, yeah?

Hang on. Just want to see if there's Telstra or something else.

What color is it? Black or white? White.

Now, my Telstra one is white. Yep. Okay. That's the gen two. Yep.

But then there's another box behind it on the wall. It's got NBN.

Excellent. Yeah. So the thing, here's the first thing you need to do.

Ignore the Telstra app. And I want you to, on your phone slash iPad, whatever you choose,

I want you to download, don't do it now, I'm talking about your instructions for going forward.

It's to download the speed test app. Okay, speed test. And if there'll be, when you search for

apps, there'll be lots of them called speed test. But the one you want is made by a company called

Ukla. It'll stand out. You'll remember it. Ukla. W-O-K-L-A. Ukla.

So speed test by Ukla is like the global standard for speed test apps. Now, what I want you to do

is I want you to do a speed test sitting there next to that modem, Telstra box.

And I want you to establish what speed you're getting, because essentially that's going to tell you

how fast the internet actually is coming into your home. Because Wi-Fi is pretty good up close.

And then you go to the next room and you do a speed test. And when you do a speed test, do a

couple, you know, back to back, do a couple of speed tests to establish yourself a bit of an

average, you know. And I think as you move further and further away from that modem, the speeds will

get worse. And that, that is exactly what's causing the problem for you. Telstra do have

the ability to buy what we call mesh add-ons to their modems. I'm not sure it works with their

Gen2. And frankly, I don't think you should be paying Telstra to upgrade. They've essentially

forced this upgrade upon you. So I'd be pushing pretty hard to say, hang on a minute, I didn't do

anything. And you've just changed everything on me. Can I, can I get what I need to make this

work now? Which is you need mesh Wi-Fi. So they're little boxes that just plug into a power point

somewhere else in the house, but they can't be too far away from that modem. But what they do is

they extend the network. But critically, I don't want you to get a Wi-Fi extender. That's a different

product. I want you to have a mesh system. Now, if Telstra won't help you with that, then your only

option is to throw the Telstra box away and go to JB's or Harvey's and buy yourself your own mesh

Wi-Fi system. Because a mesh system, so I got a two story house like you and I've got three

boxes in my home. One of them, like yours, is plugged into the NBN box right there at the

front of the house. Another one is in the middle of the lounge room, just on a bookshelf, plugged

into a power point. The other one is upstairs in a cupboard in the hallway where I have a power point

and together they connect each other and they create really good Wi-Fi throughout the whole home.

And that's where you're at. I've just done the download for you now. Yep. I've got the iPad here

and the ping rate is 26.81 and the other one is 46.12. The download speed? Yeah. Download speed is

horrible. Yes. Absolutely. So the thing here is that's Telstra. That is Telstra full stop.

Now, the problem is when you go to another side of the house, trust me, that number will get worse

because that modem is not rigged to provide Wi-Fi to a large area. It's a good modem but

you know, it's like I'm getting, I get a ping of 14 and a download speed of 920 and I'm paying for

a thousand. So you should be seeing a 400 plus sitting next to the modem on Wi-Fi, not plugged in

with a cable. You should be seeing 400 to 450 easily. Right. Well, I knew that something wrong.

If you get a mesh system, you should get that same number everywhere. Now, do you know what you're

paying Telstra? Well, I was paying, I think 93 that went down to 89 and now I'm paying 99

and because I've got a, I've got a home phone. Yep. I'm a pensioner, old block, you know. So

I like having the landline. So there aren't too many plans you can get with that on there,

don't think. You're right. There's not a lot but there are some. I want you to do this before

the end of the day. I want you to ring Aussie Broadband. Yep. Okay. They're an Aussie company.

They've got a 1,300 number on their website. They have Australians in their call centre

and they're really lovely people and I want you to say to them, what's the best plan you can do

for me for 500 speed with a landline and find out what they say because

you know, I know their price is $99 a month. They may charge an extra $10 for the landline,

maybe, I don't know. But I would balance them against Telstra price wise and then I would say

to you, once you ring Telstra and say, this is horrible, what are you doing? So when you talk

to Telstra, don't talk about the speed around your home. Firstly, just focus on, there's two

problems you have and you should address them separately. The first problem is the speed into

your home is horrible and you say to them, listen, I'm sitting next to the modem which is plugged into

the NBN which has been upgraded to the latest technology and on 500 speed that I signed up for,

I should be getting way more than 40. So that's your first problem and once they solve that problem,

then you go, well, my bigger problem now is on the other side of the house,

the Wi-Fi is rubbish. So what can you do to give me, you should be giving me mesh adapters for my

modem to give me better Wi-Fi throughout the home and see if they help you out. Right, there's

one thing that they have done in the meantime. The people in the Telstra shop didn't want to help

because they couldn't or aren't allowed to but I spoke to complaints and they've actually given me

some credits to cover a Gen 4 modem which I haven't bought yet. Excellent, but you want a Gen 4 modem

and mesh. That modem is going to be better but it's still not going to change the fact that you're

not going to get great Wi-Fi throughout the whole home. Right. And the Gen 2 modem is, from my

recollection, is Wi-Fi 6 which is just a nerdy thing but it definitely should be capable of 500

meg speeds. So that's not the thing that's stopping you getting 500 sitting next to the modem. So

don't let them blame that. Don't let them say, oh no, you've got to buy the modem and then we'll

check. No, no. Why is this modem not working? Because, mate, if they can't fix that problem,

ditch them. Go to Aussie Broadband and I guarantee you you'll get better speeds from Aussie Broadband.

They're just better. They just have better speeds. Well, it sounds like it could be a solution.

So you've got a bit of work to do, a couple phone calls to make, but as I said, address

Telstra on one issue at a time. Otherwise, you give them reason to talk about something else

when the main issue's not been solved. The main issue is you should be getting 500 sitting there

at the modem. Now, when you're looking at the numbers, the first number that goes through

is 26.81, which is the ping. Okay, is that coming in or that's going out? No, ping is just,

it's like how quickly, so if you go, hello, it's how quickly you hear the hello back, right? So

it's just, it's like, it's a measure of time as to how quickly it's able to communicate

with itself on the network. But the download speed is how quickly it can down, it can bring

files into your home. And the upload is how quickly it can send them out of your home.

So actually the ping and the response rate or whatever they call it,

not highly relevant, they are an indicator of why things aren't going great for you.

But the main thing you need is the download MBPS and the upload MBPS. And you should be showing

400 plus and 50 plus, I would think, probably closer, I think the, yeah, the one, the 500

is a 50 up. So you should be seeing 400 down and 40 plus up.

Right, yeah, I think that the 40 plus up is there, but the other one's not.

Okay, bring them. It's an outright, it's horrible, it should be better.

Yeah, it is. What about this, because they've already sent me, or give me credits to my

credit card account, took $300 to cover that cost of the new modem.

So they give you money to your credit card, not Telstra credit?

Um, I think in, oh, no, they'll give me credit. I'm not sure.

It's on my credit card.

Don't spend a cent until they fix this problem.

Yeah, because mate, that modem that you've got should be capable of 500 megabits per second.

Well, just looking at my last speed test with Telstra, which was done this morning,

okay, it's got download speed is 26.7 and upload speed is 45.4.

There's something wrong with the downloads, mate. Something wrong.

The way it's been connected, do you think or not?

No, because there's nothing complicated about your network at all.

The only thing you do before you talk to them is maybe just turn off the Telstra modem

and turn it back on again 10 minutes later and then do a speed test,

just to check that it doesn't need to reconnect to get the correct speed.

We'll do that.

All right, good luck.

Thanks for your last recall.

No worries, mate.

It's a good day.

Cheers.

No worries at all.

Happy to help.

That's an interesting one.

I think there's probably more to that story than meets the eye.

Tech, cars, lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

All right, stay tuned.

Oh, it's EFTM this week.

And we'll have all the details from the Samsung announcement.

If you've got iOS, we're so close to releasing the app.

I really am.

If you're in the public beta, you'll see it.

A few little bugs still to iron through,

but I'm very keen to get that out because we've got some awesome comps

in the schedule already.

If you've got the EFTM app, you can see what's coming up

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And if you don't, or if you've already entered today's comp,

you can then just quickly look down.

So actually anything I've logged in is listed there.

So there's a couple ahead already.

And I've got some, we've got something very big in August.

So I really want to have the app sorted for that.

But anyway, that's just all in the background and planning

and whatnot.

It's all good fun.

All in a day's work.

Anyway, thank you for listening.

Thank you for downloading.

We'll do it again back next week.

Yes, because I fly back and then we're going to Byron Bay

for a BMW event.

I think I'm back for Tuesday to record

and then we fly away to the Gold Coast for Mercedes.

So a couple of cool electric cars coming up as well.

Anyway, it's all happening folks.

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Back again next week.

This is the EFTM podcast.

Proton Gen2

mesh system

NBN

Wi-Fi

Gen 4 modem

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