Yahoo Finance Aussie loses $35,000 life savings in elaborate NAB, Westpac scam: ‘Catastrophic’
The Aussie is warning other people to watch out for the sophisticated banking scam.
A Melbourne woman is living a “nightmare” after losing nearly $35,000 meant for her home deposit in an elaborate scam.
In October, Rachel De Candia received an email claiming she had been charged twice on her Netflix account. The 28-year-old filled out her bank details hoping to get a promised refund.
That turned out to be a phishing scam and fraudsters were able to get enough of Rachel’s information before contacting her on a private number a week later.
Have you fallen victim to a scam? Contact tamika.seeto@yahooinc.com
“I received a call from a no-caller-ID saying they were from NAB fraud security. They told me that there had been an unusual transaction on my account that they had cancelled,” Rachel told Yahoo Finance.
“They said my whole account had been compromised and I needed to transfer my money out. They also said my cards had been copied at some point so I had to send them off for forensics.”
Believing she was talking to someone from NAB, Rachel followed their instructions and emptied her bank account. She transferred a total of $6,040 into a new account the bank had supposedly set up in her name. This was done via PayID.
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A few hours later, an Uber arrived at her address to collect her bank cards. Looking back, Rachel said she thought this was “weird” but, in a state of panic, she handed over both her NAB and Westpac debit cards as requested.
Within 30 minutes, the scammers had gone to ATMs to withdraw cash using her Westpac card and visited shops like Officeworks, Kmart and Coles to make purchases. In total they spent $28,629.
“A lot of the things they bought were Apple gift cards, Apple iPhones, as well as cash from the ATMs. I was told by police they convert this into cryptocurrency and it can’t be traced,” Rachel said.
Rachel said she only realised something wasn’t right when she spoke with her partner that evening. She immediately rang her banks and the police. But it was too late - she’d already lost nearly $35,000 across both banks.
Scam puts home ownership on hold
An alleged offender has since been arrested, with police telling Rachel they may have also scammed more than a dozen other people out of nearly $1 million.
Rachel has since resolved the matter with NAB, but said she was stuck in “limbo” while she waited for an outcome from Westpac and for the matter to go to court.
Prior to the scam, she had applied for a home loan with the bank. Now, she’s been forced to put these plans on hold.
“It's my life savings. It’s not like I can earn that money back within a certain amount of time. It’s years of savings … To have this amount of money gone is catastrophic,” Rachel said.
“My money is meant to be safe in a bank account and this is clearly not the case. If I had $30,000 under a mattress at home, I would still have it because I wouldn't have given it away.”
Banks’ advice to Aussies
Both Westpac and NAB told Yahoo Finance they were unable to comment on individual cases but offered words of warning for other customers.
“We will never ask a customer to transfer their money to another account in order to keep it safe. We will never ask a customer to return their credit card or hand over their PIN,” a Westpac spokesperson told Yahoo Finance.
“When customers make decisions to transfer their money to scammers, we work hard to recover the money on their behalf where possible.”
A NAB spokesperson said it conducted a thorough investigation into each case and, where a customer was a victim of a scam, made every effort to recover their funds.
“Once the funds have left their account, it’s extremely hard to retrieve them due to the sophistication and speed with which the criminals move stolen funds,” the NAB spokesperson told Yahoo Finance.
“We know education is critical to helping people avoid scammers in addition to the investments we make in our own systems to help detect scams and fraud.
"Scams impersonating NAB and other recognised brands continue to rise. This isn’t just a problem for banks and telcos, this is an issue for every public and private organisation to reduce the impact these scams are having on Australians."
Aussies lose $11 million to bank scams
Aussies have lost a staggering $92 million to impersonation scams this year, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, with $11 million lost to bank-impersonation scams.
Multiple banks are being impersonated by scammers, with Yahoo Finance previously speaking to a couple who lost nearly $50,000 in a phone call scam where the caller impersonated their bank HSBC. Like Rachel’s case, they also claimed there had been suspicious activity on their account.
Rachel wants the banks to spread more awareness about the scams and hopes her story will help others spot the warning signs.
“I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’ve gone through. It’s an actual nightmare. The only relief with my case is that I’ve been able to identify them and it’s going to go to court,” she said.
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