Dating Scams Steal More than Money

Generally scammers want money, no matter the scam. But for the victims of dating scams, they don’t just lose money. Along with their life savings, they lose what they thought was a good relationship and a trustworthy partner – as well as their confidence, ability to trust themselves and others, and sense of safety. When a relationship with a scammer feels real, the emotional devastation can be worse than the financial losses. Looking at real stories from victims shows how the manipulation works and how victims can rebuild after such betrayal.

See Intimate Partner Fraud with Tracy Hall for a complete transcript of the Easy Prey podcast episode.

Tracy Hall is an author, speaker, and senior marketing executive with over twenty-five years’ experience in tech, including working at global companies like eBay, GoDaddy, and Afterpay. In 2019, she became known as the last victim of Hamish McLaren, Australia’s most infamous conman, when Hamish’s story was featured in the hit podcast “Who the Hell is Hamish?” She wrote The Last Victim, a memoir based on this experience with intimate relationship fraud, which was published in 2024.

Tracy’s Relationship with “Max”

At forty years old, Tracy was recently separated from her husband and decided she wanted to try online dating. She went on the apps and met a man named Max Tavita. Max was also forty, a chief investment officer for a family business, and loved surfing. They started an intimate relationship which, unlike many dating scams, was very much in real life.

Max told Tracy about his work as a finance executive. She met his CEO and heard their discussions of global markets. But he presented himself as very down-to-earth – he loved his work, but also loved surfing and running, and they’d grown up in Australia in the same era so had similar cultural experiences. He said he’d worked in finance in New York for sixteen years before returning to Australia for a simpler life. He had a great sense of humor and was a fantastic listener. They built the relationship slowly over eighteen months, and Tracy was genuinely happy.

Through the relationship, Max convinced and groomed Tracy into setting up a self-managed super-fund and invest the superannuation she’d accrued over a two-decade career into that fund. Tracy thought the fund was in her name, and she trusted his financial expertise. After all, she was planning a future with him.

In mid-July 2017, though, she woke up to a Crime Stoppers video of “Max” getting arrested outside his Bondi Beach apartment. She quickly learned that he wasn’t Max at all – his name was Hamish McLaren, and he was being arrested for swindling fifteen Australian victims out of $7.6 million. Almost everything he had told Tracy about his life was fake. She had invested $317,000 with him, and it was gone.

A Slow Burn Scam

Many dating scams start with “love bombing,” effusive compliments and affection that draw a victim in. But Hamish/Max didn’t. Tracy describes the relationship as a slow burn. She was a single mom of a five-year-old daughter, and thought they talked on the phone a lot, they had limited time in person. It could be a week or more between meetings.

He was an incredible listener and great at mirroring. He would listen to what she said she wanted and adjust his persona to meet it. She wasn’t impressed by shows of wealth and luxury, so those disappeared as the relationship went along. He was a great listener so he could craft a persona she would fall in love with.

He created this character and this persona that he knew I would fall in love with, because it was exactly what I was telling him I wanted.

Tracy Hall

We as humans have a similarity bias. We tent to trust and like people similar to us. That’s what he was doing to Tracy. He also brought in some authority bias by presenting himself in an executive finance role. Tracy describes it as a movie – there were sets, scenes, and characters he created to lead her to trust him. When you don’t suspect betrayal, you won’t question their motives. That’s how humans are wired.

When you don’t suspect somebody is betraying you on that level, you don’t question anything. You just believe that they love you and they have your best interests at heart. Tracy Hall

Tracy was also a divorcee and wanted to find someone to spend the rest of her life with. Some people say that’s a vulnerability, but it’s just a human desire. There’s nothing wrong with that. Exploiting that desire and trust was the crime.

Meeting the Family

Max/Hamish didn’t want Tracy to meet his family, and that was something she pushed for. She wanted to meet his sister and her husband and kids. He’d say they’d do it next weekend, or they’d been in town when Tracy had her daughter and he told her not to worry about paying a babysitter, they’d see them next time. In retrospect, it was a red flag that he kept acting like he wanted her to meet them but it never happened.

Unlike most dating scams, Tracy did meet Hamish’s real brother-in-law a few times. He must have been scared at the time that she would call him Max and something would come up, but it never happened. In one situation, she met a childhood friend who called him “Hambone” as a nickname. When she asked him about it later, he immediately made up a story about being a skinny kid and people joked that he needed to put more ham on his bones.

There were a lot of situations like that where he had a reasonable answer, but looking back, Tracy can see the lie. One of those was his tendency for really big stories. For instance, he claimed to be in New York on 9/11. He included so many details that it seemed plausible. In retrospect, Tracy can’t believe she believed that. But the reality is that humans assume honesty.

You don’t default to doubt. You assume honesty and you default to truth because that’s how humans work.

Tracy Hall

What makes the situation so gross is that he didn’t just steal Tracy’s money and financial security. He manipulated her to gain her empathy and get her emotionally invested in him, and then preyed on that. It makes the scam feel much worse than just stealing money.

The Lies of Hamish

To Tracy, looking back on the relationship felt like he’d set up a movie for her. Since Hamish’s arrest, she’s spoken to a lot of his victims, and they all had their own movie. Through the “Who the Hell is Hamish?” podcast and investigation, she connected with a lot of people who associated with him, both victims and others. She’s met his ex-wife (she hadn’t known he was married), people who worked with him, and people who went to school with him. Everyone has a version of the story.

He was a different person for each victim. And he had victims all over the world – not just in Australia, but in the US, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, South America, and more. For the Australian victims, he had presented as a barrister, a business strategist, and a triathlete, along with his chief investment officer persona. Mostly he went by Hamish or variations of that – Tracy was the only person who knew him as Max Tevita. At that point, he’d known his crimes were catching up to him, so he was developing a new identity.

On some level, he had to be incredibly intelligent to live that many lies to that many people. Tracy can’t even remember what she had for breakfast yesterday, so it’s incredible that he never once tripped up on his story. And there was a lot of overlap in victims, so he was living multiple of these lies at the same time. But he wasn’t running dating scams exclusively. In fact, Tracy was the only Australian victim who was in a relationship with him, which added another layer to the lies. All the other victims were business relationships.

Trust After Dating Scams

People often ask Tracy how she trusts others again after getting caught in a dating scam. But that’s not the biggest problem. Her biggest challenge was learning to trust herself again. She never thought it would happen to her – she had a great education and thought she had a good intuition and was a good judge of character. When it happened, she experienced so much shame and embarrassment. There was a lot layered into the situation because it was both financial and emotional deceit.

Learning how to trust herself and her own judgement again has been the hardest thing to do over the past nine years. She’s worked hard on it. When she was rebuilding her finances, she knew she wouldn’t be able to trust herself to make financial decisions. So she did all the due diligence and found a financial advisor she could trust. She also had to get psychological help to rebuild her sense of strength.

Tracy definitely sees the world differently now. She’s made a conscious decision that Hamish is an outlier. Most people are good and want the best for us because that’s how the world operates. There are a few bad apples out there, but she doesn’t want to let those create a cynical version of her because she doesn’t want to live like that. The shame is on Hamish, and Tracy gets to have a good life – that’s a decision she’s had to make consciously. Sometimes she has to keep making that decision on bad days. But for the most part she has rebuilt, and will continue to do so as she goes through life.

Most people we meet are good people. … There are just a few bad apples amongst us that compromise the integrity of that.

Tracy Hall

Changing Approaches to Relationships

We’re living in a world where we don’t know what’s real or what isn’t. Digital deception and AI are eroding trust so quickly. Trust, but verify, and verify again. When given information, Tracy now double- and triple-checks it, because she took a lot of things in her relationship with Hamish at face value. She made a lot of mistakes that she won’t make again.

We are living in this world where we don’t’ know what’s real or not anymore. … Trust, but verify, and then verify again.

Tracy Hall

Tracy is also more aware of human cognitive flaws. Things like vulnerabilities, cognitive biases, urgency, and emotions all include cognitive flaws that get us to jump from one thing to another quickly. In most situations, that’s fine. If our brains were suspicious of everything every time we’d never get anything done. But dating scams take advantage of these invisible contracts of trust. We have to come at things from a more critical place. That’s hard, because a lot of it is subconscious.

Understanding the psychology behind scams and fraud and bad actors … is really integral to us protecting ourselves more from scams and fraud.

Tracy Hall

Understanding the psychology behind scams, fraud, and bad actors like Hamish is crucial to protecting ourselves. Knowing all the details of various scams doesn’t really matter, because they’re all variations of the same thing. They use emotions, they use urgency, they lean on these invisible contracts that most of us haven’t thought about. That’s what Tracy tries to teach people about. Learn the psychology behind the scam so you can catch yourself before you do what they’re asking.

All of the scams are the same. They’re just different versions of the same thing.

Tracy Hall

There’s a Scam for Everyone

The common assumption is dating scams move quickly. But that’s not always the case. Hamish spent a year and a half building a relationship with Tracy in person. And scams like pig butchering often take more time, too. It’s less about the specific ploy than about the tactics. The scammers’ behavior is very similar across almost every type of scam.

I think it’s fair to say there is a scam for everyone, and they take many, many different forms.

Tracy Hall

There’s a scam out there for everyone, and they can take many different forms. What happened to Tracy is extreme and unusual. But every scam is about honing in on vulnerability. That could be divorce, major illness, loss of a loved one, having a new baby, being jet lagged after travel, or anything else. It doesn’t matter who you are, there’s a scam out there for you. If they get you at the right time with the right offer, we’re all soft targets.

There are so many vulnerabilities that people are exploiting that it doesn’t matter who you are. … There’s a scam for teenagers, and there’s a scam for seniors, and there’s a scam for everyone in between.

Tracy Hall

The best thing we can do when it comes to scams and fraud is accept that it could happen to you. If that’s your starting point, you’re automatically going to be more vigilant and aware. From there, you can layer on education and knowledge. Most people don’t buy a burglar alarm until after they’ve been robbed. We don’t tend to pay attention to things until we or someone we love is personally impacted. That’s how criminals are stealing $1 trillion a year from us.

Avoiding Dating Scams

Hamish didn’t explicitly try to isolate Tracy, but he wasn’t keen on sharing their time together. He didn’t want her to meet his family. And when she suggested he join her and her friends for drinks, he’d say he wanted to spend time with just her. Tracy thought it was sweet that he wanted to spend so much time with her. But looking back, he didn’t want to engage with her friends because getting more eyes on a relationship increases the chances someone else will spot red flags that you missed.

Tracy’s advice is that when you’re dating someone, meet their friends and family and have them meet yours as soon as possible. You’ll be able to verify the information they’re giving you through their world, and your loved ones may see something you don’t. If your partner is resisting that, that’s a red flag. With online relationships, you can’t just trust a video call anymore because there are real-time deepfakes and voice clones now. Have friends or family sit in on the call to verify.

Don’t be afraid to share your relationship with your closest network. They’ll see what you can’t. It might feel weird, but in this day and age, you can’t afford not to. Tracy once heard someone explain it as being at an illusionist show. If you’re in that relationship, you’re sitting front and center so you never see the tricks. Someone off to the side of the stage has a better angle to see the slight-of-hand going on. It’s a great analogy for dating.

Check the Digital Footprint

Tracy also believes in researching people’s digital footprint. Max didn’t have one. He didn’t have social media, but a lot of people Tracy knows don’t – that’s not unusual. What is unusual in this day and age is that he didn’t have a digital footprint at all. In reality, Max didn’t have a digital footprint because Max Tevita didn’t exist. But Hamish McLaren exists and has an extensive digital footprint.

To avoid dating scams, Tracy recommends doing your research. If you can’t find any info on someone, that’s a red flag. Use reverse image search too and make sure the person you’re dating is who they say they are and not using someone else’s identity. There are a lot of checks you can do for that.

You have to have your critical thinking brain on. That’s hard when you’re in love with someone. But do your best to think skeptically, but not cynically. Be aware that scammers do exist among us and it can happen to you. Tracy had never met anyone like Hamish before and never thought it would happen to her. So part of why she shares her story is to lift that veil of shame and secrecy. It happens to more people than you think – you just don’t hear about it because victims are embarrassed.

Shedding light on Dating Scams

Tracy hopes that by sharing her story, it will lift someone else’s feeling of shame. If something like this happened to you, you don’t have to go to the police. But Tracy encourages you to tell someone you love, and report it to the police if you can. We can solve this massive global crime by exposing the criminals for what they are. The shame is on them – it’s not on you.

Every single time Tracy gives a talk about dating scams, at least one person comes up to her afterwards and says, “I haven’t told anyone else about this, but…” Sometimes it’s not even their personal story. It might be their mother or their son who was a victim. Extorting teens, especially sextortion targeting teenage boys, is a crime happening right now that frightens Tracy. A lot of people come up to Tracy after talks and share about what happened to their son or nephew.

These crimes thrive in secrecy. The more we shine light on them and understand them, the more people who come forward and talk about their experiences, the greater the chance we can solve the issue. Tracy hopes sharing her story can play a part in that and encourage people to share their stories.

Learn more about Tracy Hall and her story on her website, tracyhall.com.au, or connect with her on LinkedIn. You can also find The Last Victim, her memoir that details her life before, during, and after her relationship with Hamish, wherever books are sold.