Intimate Partner Fraud

Intimate Partner Fraud

From Easy Prey by Chris Parker

April 1, 2026 · 46 min · Episode 316

About this episode

The episode explores the story of Tracy Hall, who was deceived by her boyfriend, a notorious conman, highlighting the dangers of intimate partner fraud.

Most scams leave a digital trail. A fake email, a spoofed number, a fraudulent website. You can trace them, report them, sometimes even reverse them. But what happens when the scam has no digital trail at all, because it isn't happening on a screen? What happens when the con is standing right in front of you, making you laugh, meeting your friends, and planning a future with you? My guest today is Tracy Hall. She's an author, keynote speaker, and senior marketing executive with over 25 years at some of the world's most recognizable tech companies including eBay, Virgin, GoDaddy, and Afterpay. She is sharp, successful, and by every measure, exactly the kind of person you'd assume would see it coming. She didn't. And neither would you. In 2017, Tracy woke up to a Crime Stoppers video of an unidentified man being arrested outside a Sydney apartment. That man was her boyfriend of 18 months. Except he wasn't who she thought he was. The man she knew as Max Tevita a Bondi surfer, a finance executive, the person she was building a life with was actually Hamish McLaren, Australia's most infamous conman, a man who had been running long game cons for thirty years across multiple countries…

People in this episode

Host: Chris Parker

Guest: Tracy Hall

Topics covered

  • scams
  • fraud
  • true crime
  • personal stories
  • con artists

Keywords

  • intimate partner fraud
  • scams
  • conman
  • Tracy Hall
  • Hamish McLaren
  • Crime Stoppers
  • Sydney
  • life savings
  • true crime

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Crime Stoppers

Places: Sydney, Bondi

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