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Posts in Payments

$430K stolen from Melbourne High School to feed a gambling addiction. Gobbill can prevent such fraud says CEO and former school’s old boy.

March 7th, 2023 Posted by Business Management, Featured, Financial Management, Fraud Prevention, Payments 0 thoughts on “$430K stolen from Melbourne High School to feed a gambling addiction. Gobbill can prevent such fraud says CEO and former school’s old boy.”

A former business manager of Melbourne High School has been jailed after stealing more than $430,000 from her employer to feed an out-of-control gambling addiction.

Frances Walshe’s first theft in early 2012 went unnoticed by the school because of a poor financial governance model that gave the 65-year-old unchecked access to its bank accounts.

Over the following decade, Walshe made a further 263 illegal transactions, stealing $432,546 from the school’s coffers to feed an out-of-control gambling addiction.

Schools, clubs, not-for-profits and other organisations can’t rely on trusting one person who has banking access. For less than $50 per month, a subscription to Gobbill automates accounts payable saving time and costs. It reduces the need to access Internet Banking for making payments, and eliminates or reduces the risk of internal and external fraud.

Shendon Ewans – Gobbill CEO and a Melbourne High School ‘Old Boy’ says that this type of crime could have been prevented. For such a school where funds are so important and fundraising can be very difficult at times, it is disappointing for the school’s management to not have the proper check and balances.

Find out how Gobbill can protect your organisation – school, club or private business.

Contact Gobbill https://gobbill.com/contact/

Image Source: ABC News. Frances Walshe (right) has been sentenced to two years’ jail after stealing thousands of dollars from Melbourne High.(ABC News: Kristian Silva)

Read more from ABC News: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-06/melbourne-high-school-frances-walshe-business-manager-jailed/102057716

NDIS Fraud is costing billions yearly. CEO delivers insights at a fraud conference.

December 2nd, 2022 Posted by Fraud Prevention, NDIS, Payments 0 thoughts on “NDIS Fraud is costing billions yearly. CEO delivers insights at a fraud conference.”

CEO of Gobbill (& Aspect Plan Management), Shendon Ewans spoke about #NDIS fraud at the Transform Finance Conference (Anti-Money Laundering #AML, #Fraud, Technology Innovation & #Security) on the 1st of December 2022 Crowne Plaza Melbourne.

The topic covered “Insights Into the Extent of Fraud in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Costing Billions Yearly.”

The latest federal #budget2022 forecasts spending on the #NDIS could hit ~$100 billion per annum in a decade and is looking at a new Taskforce costing $126m over four years to tackle NDIS fraud.
• The NDIS costs the Federal Budget $27b (FY22) and it has allocated $38b for FY23.
• Fraud levels have been reported to be as high as 15-20% (~$5b) last year.
• Gobbill has been detecting and preventing #scams and #fraud for its NDIS clients and other vulnerable people over years.


Contact Gobbill to find out more.

Over $5Bn annually in NDIS could be fraud according to the Head of Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

August 15th, 2022 Posted by Aspect Plan Management, Fraud Prevention, NDIS, Payments 0 thoughts on “Over $5Bn annually in NDIS could be fraud according to the Head of Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.”

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission boss Michael Phelan claims that 15-20% (~$5Bn) annually in National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding could be fraud. In June 2022, the NDIS paid out $27Bn for the year. As tax payers, we expect the funding to support participants of the scheme who are the most vulnerable in our community.

Gobbill as a registered NDIS provider, supports thousands of participants, nominees and their providers by facilitating valid NDIS claims and payments. We use our technology to prevent and detect fraud – hence protecting the NDIS budgets of our clients with disabilities.

A joint investigation by 60 MINUTES, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, has found that the NDIS money has proven an irresistible magnet for criminals. It’s a sad reality of life that some truly awful people walk among us. However, the title of “most despicable” must surely go to members of the organised crime networks who have been targeting vulnerable Australians in order to rip off the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The NDIS is wanting to invest in an ability to detect, prevent and respond to fraud and non-compliant behaviour as the Scheme continues to grow.

Gobbill is an Australian FinTech company and registered NDIS Provider able to reduce fraud and waste. To find out more about Gobbill, contact us https://gobbill.com/contact/

To read more on Nine Network: https://9now.nine.com.au/60-minutes/organised-crime-networks-targeting-vulnerable-australians/aef7079e-a7e7-4106-82ed-08fdd0838f39

Image from 60 Minutes

How your business can survive further rising costs this new financial year.

June 22nd, 2022 Posted by bills, Financial Management, Payments 0 thoughts on “How your business can survive further rising costs this new financial year.”

Business owners deserve a break after struggling through the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. For many, now is the time to recover and get their businesses back on track.

However, costs have increased since pre-pandemic and is expected to rise sharply as new pricing is passed through in the coming financial year.

Bill payment automation specialist Gobbill compared costs from pre-covid to today and found that costs for small businesses have significantly increased. The average:

  • electricity bill has increased by 22%,
  • phone and internet have increased by 29%, and
  • general insurance has spiked by over 113%.

The bills analysed are only starting to include the recent months of higher inflation. More is expected to come when increases are passed on throughout the year.

“We are expecting another jump on top of the covid period increases by possibly another 30% or more this coming financial year.” said Shendon Ewans, CEO of bill payments company Gobbill. “Add to that, businesses are struggling to hire staff from frontline to back-office administration. Business owners have had to step in to do more for their businesses.”

There are two things business owners can do to prepare for the new year.

1. Aim to increase productivity: Work smarter using automation instead of labour where possible. There are solutions which enables businesses to grow sustainably by leveraging innovation to drive productivity. For example, Gobbill is helping businesses to replace labor with automated processes in accounts payable saving businesses an average of $30,000 each year. Another tool is the use of e-signature software such as DocuSign to cut wasted time and postage costs. These are just a few great productivity initiatives that not everyone has adopted.

2. Cost reduction and control: Scan all bills to see what is really needed and whether you can get a better deal. You’d be surprised as to what you are paying for and that you can find better deals by comparing. Try to benchmark and compare what you should be paying.

After 5 years of bill payment processing, Gobbill has accumulated valuable benchmark data and know-how in lowering costs.

Gobbill is assisting business owners to undertake a cost reduction analysis across their bills. We are offering a FREE analysis to a limited number of business clients.

If you’re interested, reach out to us https://gobbill.com/contact/ or email [email protected]

Can you spot a scam?

August 17th, 2020 Posted by Internet Safety, Payments, Staysmartonline, Uncategorized 0 thoughts on “Can you spot a scam?”

Welcome to the National Scams Awareness Week 2020! 

(Australia and New Zealand)

Gobbill has been a strong supporter in protecting people from against fraud and scams since 2015. We are proud to be a campaign partner for this year’s National Scams Awareness Week. 

Throughout this week, we will be raising awareness of scams and frauds. We will focus on Phishing and Email Compromise. These are two areas of scams that Gobbill has extensive experience in confronting.  

To kick off the week, we have posted a quiz titled Can you spot a scam?’ on our Instagram page.

If you are here to read the explanations, please keep reading.

If you have not done the quiz, hop off this page and come back to this page for the explanations. 

  1. Optus – This is a real email bill from Optus. Optus does send from cloudmails.net and they do personalised the email to the account holder.   
  2. ANZ –This is a Scam. The sender anzhost.org is fake and the email is not personalised. 
  3. DocuSign – This is a Scam. An email from DocuSign will have the sender’s email and details above the general text. Tricky one!   
  4. Xero – This is a real email and invoice. The email is from the correct sender and the email is correctly personalised to the recipient.  As a scammer, this would be one of the easiest to use; to change the link or attachment and have something quite malicious for the victim.

How did you go? Scam emails or texts can look extremely authentic and convincing through replicating legitimate messages from trusted senders. 

These scams often feature official looking logos and emails and a ‘call to action’ to open a malicious link or share personal information. That’s why Gobbill has developed automated checks of domains, links and much more over the last 5 years. Gobbill fetches and/or opens attachments safely so you don’t have to.  

We do this for all Australian billers including telcos, councils, utilities and many more. 

We process payments to over 40,000 billers with over 1m+ Australians already having access to Gobbill’s payment platform.

For more information, contact us at: https://gobbill.com/contact/ 

Protected: Plans and Prices

June 1st, 2020 Posted by Gobbill News, Payments 0 thoughts on “Protected: Plans and Prices”

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Invoice Fraud – Is your business Protected? What is it worth to you?

April 7th, 2020 Posted by Featured, Internet Safety, Payments, Staysmartonline 0 thoughts on “Invoice Fraud – Is your business Protected? What is it worth to you?”
07/04/2020
Police Arrests following Invoice Fraud
NSW Police last week arrested and charged two men over their alleged involvement in a $2.6 million Business Email Compromise (BEC) scam syndicate. The scam involved sending altered invoices to businesses who unknowingly paid the scammers into their accounts.

One of the men is believed by police to be the leader of the syndicate and faces charges related to directing a criminal group. Police allege he gained more than $1.6 million, and unsuccessfully tried to gain nearly another $1 million through email scams from mid-2018 until early this year.

Commander of the NSW Cybercrime Squad, Matthew Craft, said cybercrime presents “a unique challenge for law enforcement”.
“These arrests are a timely reminder for all individuals and businesses to have strong cyber security measures in place for protection,” Craft said.

“During this investigation, officers uncovered a criminal network targeting hard-working Australian businesses through a series of sophisticated email scams,” Det Supt Craft said.
Police charged three other people last year in relation to the same investigation.

Business email compromise scams
Business email compromise (BEC) scams – where finance staff are deceived into paying fake invoices –are becoming increasingly common.

In 2018 alone, it was estimated that Australian businesses lost more than $60 million from this type of scam.

An ice rink in Sydney’s South West fell victim to a BEC scam earlier this year after receiving changed payment details for a new ice resurfacer it was purchasing, transferring $77,000 into an unknown Hungarian bank account.

Currently, the COVID-19 outbreak is creating a new set of challenges for businesses trying to shore up their cyber defences. There has been a rise in the number of coronavirus-related scams in recent weeks. With many Australian businesses trying to operate remotely to help encourage social distancing, networks could be more vulnerable as they are spread away from centralised IT systems.

How can you protect your business?
The Australian Cyber Security Centre has a list of strategies to mitigate the effects of cyber-attacks during the COVID-19, but one of the simplest steps business owners or accountants/bookkeepers can take to reduce their risk is to implement Gobbill as their accounts payable solution.

Gobbill is a simple, affordable bill payment automation and fraud protection tool that protects users from scams like Business Email Compromise. Our unique Know Your Biller process checks every document before it is scheduled to be paid, and intervenes to stop payment of any bills which are suspicious or have been tampered with.

Plans start from $25 per month, with a free 1 month trial on our small business plan.

To arrange a demo contact [email protected] or call 0444 599 715.

Source Articles: https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2020/police-arrest-men-over–2-6m-email-scam.html
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/australians-arrested-over-26m/
John Higgins

$22 billion dollar per annum NDIS hit by up to $2B in fraud says former fraud investigator

February 17th, 2020 Posted by Gobbill News, Internet Safety, Payments 0 thoughts on “$22 billion dollar per annum NDIS hit by up to $2B in fraud says former fraud investigator”

Former fraud investigator for the National Disability Insurance Scheme says too few people are dealing with fraud in the system. $2B could be in fraud per annum in the $22B per annum scheme.

New features in Gobbill

January 6th, 2020 Posted by Financial Management, Gobbill News, Payments, Product Features, Time Management 0 thoughts on “New features in Gobbill”

New feature update as of 6 January 2020

We are listening to clients’ feedback and implementing features almost every business day.  You can imagine there would be plenty of small and large changes being made daily.

Here are a few key ones:

  • Click through to bill details from the Bill Calendar. Client requested to be able to click through from the calendar to the bill details.
  • Additional options to override the payment date. A client asked to have more control over when specific Billers are paid.

Click through to bill details from the Bill Calendar. A client requested to be able to click through from the calendar to the bill details.

Additional options to override the payment date – A client asked to have more control over when specific Billers are paid, and this new feature is now available on our Premium and Business Plans.

Benefits:

  • Set payment time frames for individual billers – ‘pay x business days before due date’ or ‘pay x calendar days after issue date’
  • Set and forget, once you select the payment time frame it will automatically apply to any future bills received for that biller
  • Better supplier relationships, give suppliers more certainty about exactly when they will be paid, particularly those who manage a tight cash flow

Other recent features prior to 6 January 2020 ———–

Pay ASAP is a preference switch to enable the payment of invoices as soon as possible (ASAP) when a bill arrives in Gobbill. This feature was requested by one of our bookkeeper clients to clear invoices and bills as soon as they are received instead of paying before the due date or paying late.

[BETA] Payroll Sweep and Pay is the ability to clear payroll payments for any client and any Australian bank account through Gobbill. Instead of having to manage multiple Internet Banking login access authorities, logins and passwords, our accounting and bookkeeping partners can access one point trigger payroll approval and to clear payroll payments. Performing it through Gobbill doesn’t affect your clients’ Internet Banking daily limited which can alleviate a big issue on certain days when many payments have to be made on the same day.

[BETA] Bill and Payroll approval flows is the ability for small business users as well as accountants and bookkeepers to trigger approvals for bills/invoices and payroll. Authorizers can simply respond via email to approve without the need for logins or apps.

New dashboard designed for bookkeepers and accountants to manage their clients’ bills/invoices within Gobbill. Working with AAT members and our Partners, we’ve listened and developed a new dashboard to help support the work activities of bookkeepers and accountants. The dashboard helps to collate and group all clients’ accounts payable invoices and manage the timing and cashflow of payments. It is currently being trialed by a beta group.

NDIS dashboard for Plan Managers and households with NDIS self-managed participants. NDIS Plan Managers and Self-Managed Participants are able to see their invoices relating to NDIS all in one area. Their Gobbill account can support the whole bookkeeping practice (portfolio of clients) or whole-of-household with all bills and invoices. We see Gobbill as a whole-of-household solution for bills (including NDIS invoices) making life admin easier for those who are participating in the NDIS. A new dashboard is available to users on the Premium and Business Plans. Just ask [email protected] to activate it for you. There’s no extra charge or fees because it is all part of your existing Plan.

Bank statements can be uploaded directly for account verification and setup. A request from a Partner, you can now link a new bank account in Gobbill and upload bank statements for verification immediately. This is in addition to emailing  your bank statement to your own @gobbill.com email address.

Gobbill can now pay over 40,000 Australian billers and uses robots to fetch bills stored online. Some billers will send a notification that a bill is ready online. Instead of clicking on the link, forward the notification to Gobbill to do it for you. Gobbill currently has robots which will safely and securely fetch from online sources bills/invoices from their associated portals. E.g. City West Water, Sydney Water, Energy Australia, AGL Energy, Xero invoices and more..Robot automation saves you time and also helps to prevent you from clicking on malware or being directed to a fake website.

Gobbill is now able to accept multiple invoice/bill attachments and multiple types of documents in an email. Previously, Gobbill required each invoice to be on its separate email.

Documents awaiting processing by Gobbill due to fraud check or text recognition are displayed as in Gobbill as “Pending documents”.

Bill payment cutoff time is now midnight instead of 6pm. This is the cut off time for bills to be included in the next business day’s payment processing. If  a bill is sent into Gobbill and accepted before midnight, it will be included in the payment processing the next business day or scheduled before the due date depending on the circumstances and preferences.

Win cash back for paying your bills in June

June 3rd, 2019 Posted by Gobbill News, Payments 0 thoughts on “Win cash back for paying your bills in June”

[Competition is now closed. The winner was drawn 1pm 1 July 2019 AEST.]

 

To celebrate our ‘Pay any bill with any coin’ launch with Cointree we have a competition to Win cash back for paying your bills through Cointree (Coin) or Gobbill (Card/Bank)*

You can either use Gobbill’s Free, Premium and/or Business Plan to pay your everyday bills. Alternatively, you can also use Cointree.com ‘Pay bill’ service which is processed by Gobbill.

It’s an automatic entry each time you pay your bills. No need to put in details or write a story….Good luck!

 

Here are some photos of our Launch Party on 30 May 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Conditions.

Pay your bill using Gobbill or Cointree for a chance to win your bill amount back. Each bill payment is a single entry into the draw.

The winner will receive their bill amount in AUD (including GST if applicable) back in cash up to the value of $1,000 whichever is the lesser amount.

The bill must be paid from 27 May 2019 and before midnight 30 June 2019.

The winner will be drawn on Monday 1 July and contacted directly via email by either Cointree or Gobbill.

The prize amount will be an electronic transfer within 14 days. The prize will be invalid if unclaimed within 60 days.