Yahoo Finance Barefoot Investor slams ING: ‘Time to lick the bowl’
Well-known finance commentator and author Scott Pape has slammed ING bank after one of its customers lost $20,000.
In an email to his subscribers, Pape said an ING customer contacted him after losing her wedding fund to a scammer.
“The scammers hit her account every 30 seconds, each time taking random amounts,” Pape said.
“$546, $990, $7.50, $1,000, $99.
“And they kept smashing the account until all $20,000 was drained.”
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Pape said ING failed their customer, firstly by not having adequate safety features to protect customers from having their account drained, but secondly for refusing to return the stolen funds.
“You’d think that Australia’s fifth-largest bank – which trousered $549 million in profits after tax last year – would have tipped even just a little bit of that dough into having the most basic banking safety features,” he said.
“After a lot of back and forth and tears … ING agreed to pay her half the money back.”
An ING spokesperson told Yahoo Finance the bank works hard to protect customers from falling victim to scams.
"At ING we are always focused on keeping the savings and data of customers safe. Scams are an increasing industry wide issue that we take very seriously," the spokesperson said.
"To help customers avoid being scammed we apply the latest technology advances and regularly educate our customers and social media followers.
"We encourage all customers to review our security page for information about how ING protects customers.”
Scams on the rise
Many Aussies think they are switched on enough to know how to avoid scams but the data tells a different story.
Australians lost a record amount of more than $2 billion to scams in 2021, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Targeting Scams report revealed.
Reported losses to all organisations totalled almost $1.8 billion but, because one-third of victims do not report scams, the ACCC estimated actual losses were well over $2 billion.
Investment scams were the highest loss category ($701 million) in 2021, followed by payment redirection scams ($227 million), and romance scams ($142 million).
“Scam activity continues to increase and, last year, a record number of Australians lost a record amount of money,” ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard said.
“Scammers are the most opportunistic of all criminals. They pose as charities after a natural disaster, health departments during a pandemic, and love interests every day.
“The true cost of scams is more than a dollar figure as they also cause serious emotional harm to individuals, families, and businesses.”
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