On marie claire’s podcast, Tracy Hall opens up about the man who stole her life savings – and the disturbing discovery driving her campaign for mandatory identity checks.
Tracy Hall had already discovered that the man she loved was living under a false identity. Then, years after his arrest, another dating profile brought the issue back into sharp focus.
Hall says a Bumble profile featuring Hamish McLaren’s photograph appeared in 2025, while he was still in prison. For the author and fraud-prevention advocate, it raised an urgent question: how easily could someone use a dating platform to present themselves as somebody else?
Now, following McLaren’s release in July 2026, Hall is urging the Australian government to require dating app users to verify their identities before creating an account. She has also launched a petition calling for mandatory ID verification.
Speaking to marie claire editor Georgie McCourt on You’re Gonna Want To Hear This, Hall says her concern extends beyond the man who stole her $317,000 life savings.
“What I’m concerned about is that there’s people like him and criminals in the world that can present on dating apps, where we’re putting ourselves in vulnerable situations, opening our hearts, opening our homes, and we deserve to know who’s on the other end of the screen.”
“I set up a fake profile in four minutes”
Hall’s proposal would require users to establish their identity using government-issued identification before accessing a dating platform. She believes stronger checks could make it harder for people to exploit fabricated identities to manipulate others.
To test how easily a false identity could get through, she created a profile herself.
“I set up a fake profile in four minutes,” she says. “It was pictures of me, different email address, different date of birth, and different mobile number, and suddenly I’m on a dating app as Sarah, 45.”
The profile featuring McLaren’s image does not establish who created or operated the account. But for Hall, its appearance underscores the need for greater accountability from platforms.
Her campaign comes amid substantial financial harm. Australians reported $139.9 million in losses to romance scams in 2025, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre’s figures published by the ACCC.
“This is a very, very under-reported crime,” Hall says on the podcast. “Most people won’t report, because they see the way in which they’re represented in the media.”
For Hall, whose daughter is now 16, the push for change is also personal.
“In a few years she’ll be on a dating app,” she says. “We have to demand better for our children.”
“There was no love bombing”
When Hall matched with a man calling himself Max Tavita in 2016, she was navigating online dating after marriage. His photographs showed someone who enjoyed running, swimming, surfing and spending time at the beach.
“He was really funny. He had good grammar. He could spell,” she recalls. “We had similar interests. He asked a lot of questions.”
Their connection developed through messages, phone calls and eventually dinner. Hall is clear that the relationship did not begin with an obvious rush of extravagant affection.
“He wasn’t jumping in. There was no love bombing. There was none of that. It was a very slow getting to know you on a very deep level.”
Over time, they discussed a future together, viewing properties in Byron Bay and speaking with real estate agents.
Looking back, Hall can see how he used their conversations to build a convincing impression of compatibility.
“He was very, very good at mirroring,” she says. “So if I said something, then next conversation or a few conversations later, that would come mirrored back to me in some sort of way.”
There were also subtle ways of keeping their relationship separate from others. When Hall suggested seeing friends, he would explain that he had missed her and wanted time alone together.
“Of course, there’s a part of you that thinks, ‘Well, that’s music to my ears,’” she says. “Like, he just wants to be with me.”
The Deception Disguised As Care
McLaren presented himself as a chief financial officer with decades of experience. Hall describes regular conversations about global markets, investment strategies and gold prices, reinforced by emails, reports and the apparent trappings of a finance career.
Money became a familiar topic. His interest in her financial future arrived as an offer of help.
“It doesn’t come in waving a big red flag,” she says of the manipulation. “It comes in disguised as, ‘Let me help you.’”
“It comes in disguised as care, concern.”
Hall’s first investment was $10,000 towards the end of 2016. Later, their conversations turned to her superannuation, accumulated across 22 years of work.
She says McLaren guided her through establishing a self-managed super fund, with documentation that reinforced her belief that the money would be invested in a trading account in her name.
“But what actually happened was that that money never went into a trading account in my name,” she says. “It went into an account in his name.”
Afterwards, their relationship continued as before, with plans for holidays, date nights and their future.
“Of course, I loved and trusted him. We were building our future together,” Hall says. “I never in a million years thought this would happen.”
“Who the fuck is Hamish?”
The truth emerged after McLaren stopped answering her calls.
Fearing something had happened to him, Hall contacted Bondi Police to request a welfare check. Then a girlfriend called and told her to open a link to a news article.
“I thought he’d died,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘There’s been a shark attack, a surfing accident. He’s dead.’”
Instead, she watched footage of her boyfriend being arrested.
A message from his brother-in-law introduced a name she had never heard.
“That’s the first time I saw his name, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Hamish?’”
What followed dismantled everything she believed about their relationship.
“Literally 24 hours before, this was a guy who I thought I would spend the rest of my life with,” she says.
“Suddenly I’m uncovering that his name is not real, his identity is not real, his age is not real, his life is not real, and everything I thought I knew about him was completely false.”
Her response was physical as well as emotional.
“I felt sick. I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t feel my legs.”
McLaren was convicted over fraud involving 15 Australian victims. His sentence was reduced on appeal to 12 years, with a nine-year non-parole period, and he was released in July 2026.
The Contact That Continued After His Arrest
Hall says McLaren continued contacting her through calls and letters for six months after his arrest, suggesting there were things he could explain if she visited him in prison.
“For a hot minute, I was so tempted,” she admits.
By then, her hope centred on recovering her money. Eventually, she recognised that she had no reason to believe another conversation would bring the truth.
“In what universe is this man who has lied about everything from his name to his job to his past to everything, in what universe is he all of a sudden gonna tell me the truth?”
Then flowers arrived at her office with a card reading: “See you soon. Love Hamish.”
“I went to the bathrooms and I threw up. I felt viscerally sick,” she says.
Hall contacted the lead detective about the calls, letters and flowers. Afterwards, she says, the contact stopped.
“There ould be no tears at the dinner table”
In the immediate aftermath, Hall’s young daughter and her career gave her reasons to keep going.
“I made a decision really early on that there would be no tears at the dinner table,” she says.
Her daughter was too young to understand what had happened, and Hall wanted to preserve her sense of security.
“If I’m in bed all day in the fetal position, how does she get to school? Who’s gonna make her lunch? What about her activities?”
After three weeks away, Hall returned to her marketing job. It was her financial lifeline, but it also connected her with an identity beyond the crime.
“I knew that if I could hold onto my job, then I could rebuild.”
Privately, recovery was much harder.
“Late at night, when no one was watching, there would be a lot of tears,” she says. “I’ve spent a lot of money on therapy. I’ve tried everything.”
Why The Language Matters
Now the author of memoir The Last Victim, Hall wants greater understanding of the psychological manipulation behind financial crime.
She also wants the language used to describe it to change.
“I didn’t lose $317,000,” she says. “He stole it from me.”
References to the “red flags” she missed, Hall explains, can make the deception sound obvious, overlooking what she describes as “expertly disguised behaviours intended to manipulate and deceive me”.
For Hall, speaking publicly is a way of supporting people who are still struggling with shame.
“There are people there who have lost a lot of money to scams and fraud, who don’t yet have the strength to talk, and I do,” she says. “And so I’ll be their voice until they’re ready.”
The Next Challenge: Knowing What Is Real
Hall’s advocacy also addresses the ways artificial intelligence can make deception more convincing.
On the podcast, she describes creating an AI-generated voice message as a demonstration, using a short recording of her own voice and a fabricated request for help paying school fees.
She told her mother it was a scam before sharing it. Even so, her mother’s response was sobering.
“She said, ‘Trace, I would’ve paid the money. I would’ve sent it.’”
For Hall, it reinforces the need to think more carefully about how trust is established online.
“We are taught financial literacy, we are taught digital literacy, but we’re never, ever taught how to trust,” she says.
Learning To Trust Again
Hall has found love since McLaren. But rebuilding trust began with her relationship with herself.
“It’s never been about trusting other people since this happened,” she says. “It’s been about trusting myself.”
Recovering confidence in her intuition and judgement has been, she says, an even greater challenge than rebuilding her finances.
“Trust is made in the very small moments that are consistently done over time,” she explains.
Her advice is to “be sceptical, not cynical”: to ask questions while holding onto the possibility of meaningful connection.
“Most people, in all walks of life, are good, and they want the best for you, and I honestly believe that.”
Above all, Hall wants responsibility for what happened placed where it belongs.
“Yes, it has impacted me, and yes, I’ve had to put myself back together,” she says. “But the shame is on him.”
Listen to Tracy Hall’s full conversation on marie claire’s podcast, You’re Gonna Want To Hear This, or watch on marie claire Australia’s YouTube channel. Find out more about her campaign through her petition for mandatory dating app ID verification.
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