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Scams, whose fault?

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'I can't trust anything anymore': Woman loses 95-year-old mum's $1.6m life savings to scammers

It all started with a phone call from a well-spoken man who claimed he worked for a well-known bank. Now, Harriet has lost the proceeds from the sale of her widowed mother's home.
www.abc.net.au

  • In short: Harriet Spring fell for a sophisticated fixed-term deposit scam.
  • Experts warn scams are now too complex for consumers to pick up on by themselves and they want banks to be liable for reimbursing customers.
  • What's next? The government says it's working with the banks to tighten security but won't go down that route at the moment.
Harriet Spring remembers the first phone call, in November.

The man with the "posh British accent" on the other end introduced himself as "from ING" and asked if she was interested in good rates on fixed-term deposits.

"Nothing crazy, nothing too out of the ordinary," Mrs Spring said.

"So, I didn't think, 'that sounds too good to be true'."
In fact, it was perfect timing for the Canberra architect — an existing ING customer — who'd been driving to and from the NSW South Coast each weekend for months to prepare her 95-year-old mother's house for sale.

Her mother had moved into an aged care facility after a series of strokes left her "unable to walk or talk".

"It was the end of a very hard year, and this guy just made it so easy," Mrs Spring said.
After months of phone calls and correspondence that she said appeared legitimate, she handed over $1.6 million — her mother's life savings — to scammers.

The real ING bank was not involved in any part of the process.
 
I agree that ING should not have to reimburse this person for their loss but we need to accept that we now live in a world where this kind of scamming is rife and measures needs to be taken and processes implemented to combat it.

It should be automatic that when large sums of money, lets say over $25,000, are requested by a customer to be withdrawn or transferred to another account, that the bank should make a phone call to the customer to do a quick check to see why the transfer was requested. These calls could be made by fraud experts who know what red flags to look for. Suspect transactions could be held pending further inquiries or investigation.

It is heartbreaking to read stories of people losing their life savings to scammers.
 
@greggles We bank with BankWest which is now a subsidiary of Comm Bank.
Whenever we make a transaction to an unlisted name on our lists we get a call "Did you authorise this transaction"
This service is not restricted to large amounts as I have had a check on as little as a couple of hundred dollars.
Not too sure if the service we get now will continue when BankWest goes into demise in October though.
 

There should also be more effective law enforcement. Where there is evidence of involvement in scamming, Australian based bank accounts should be frozen until the matter is fully investigated. There should be better co-operation with authorities in other countries known to be involved in scamming, such as Nigeria.
 
This is already the case, recipients of fraudulent funds have there accounts frozen as soon as it is alerted. Frequently these individuals are then debanked.

More often then not victims also refuse to concede they have been scammed and often confirm with the bank that the transactions are legitimate, this is frequently followed by "its my money its none of your business what i do with it".

The banks are having to walk a fine line of allowing customers to have full control over there finances but also protecting them. Most financial institutions suppress/delay transactions, send push notifications, outbound contact to flag risks. Customers more often then not are blind to the fact they are being conned and push through, only swallowing there pride several months later and asking the bank for help recovering the funds.

Another complexity is that the recipient of scam funds is frequently used in a broader money mulling scheme where they are not aware they are receiving victim funds.

(I work as a data analyst within a fraud analytics division at a large financial institution)
 
As per the article, the lady was an ING customer and apparently was told ING weren't offering that interest rate, one would have thought the lady would think to check.

IMO It wouldn't be unusual for customers, who have say a SMSF, to transfer large amounts of money around between term deposits.
So it would be strange IMO, if the teller at the bank would say are you sure this isn't a scam, the teller probably would assume the person was obviously quite intellegent to be dealing with that sort of sum.
Just a tragedy all round really and a warning to all to double check everything.
From the article:
In fact, it was perfect timing for the Canberra architect — an existing ING customer — who'd been driving to and from the NSW South Coast each weekend for months to prepare her 95-year-old mother's house for sale.

After months of phone calls and correspondence that she said appeared legitimate, she handed over $1.6 million — her mother's life savings — to scammers.

The real ING bank was not involved in any part of the process.

Mrs Spring said she also asked her mother's bank to match ING's rate, which they declined, but did tell her, "actually, ING aren't offering that rate".
 
If you have set up the account via Internet Banking, there is a limit of $5,000 per payee per day and a maximum cumulative limit of $25,000 per day. For example, if you want to pay 5 different accounts, you can transfer $5,000 to each account per day.

Transferring funds with Internet Banking FAQs

Find answers to your frequently asked questions about transferring money online with Bank of Melbourne Internet Banking.
www.banksa.com.au

JP Morgan has an A$250K limit for a transfer. Whilst Chase in the UK has a GBP25K limit.

It does seem strange that over $1 million could be moved to another account.

----

There are cases where people have a shared computer or they let someone else use it and they download a code via a scammer that gives access to the computer and doesn't mention this. Then a person goes to their Bank Account online and the scammer is there as well. Bank account is emptied.
 
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Another classic example of be careful what you sign up for and do your legwork. This is a horrible situation for a person to end up in.

'Worked 40 years for nothing': Scammers tricked Lee's super fund and stole 180k

Lee fought the financial ombudsman all the way to the federal court when scammers stole his super. Despite winning he only got some money back and after legal fees he's worse off.
www.abc.net.au
 
sptrawler said:
After months of phone calls and correspondence that she said appeared legitimate, she handed over $1.6 million — her mother's life savings — to scammers.
Click to expand...

Like many on this forum I get daily texts, emails, and occasionally calls, about parcel deliveries, the ATO is about to raid me over a debt, I've won a prize from Bunnings, Coles, etc. The delete button gets a right old proper workout. Probably one of the issues with scams is the person themselves in that they have $$ signs in their eyes.

Data hacks and attempted hacks of companies is a separate issue and likely a real worry in this era.

The part in bold in the above quote is the concerning aspect. The bad guys were smooth and able to manipulate the lady. Played her like a violin. Yet over months she decided not to call the bank number on the back of the ING Orange Card (assuming she had that particular account) or type in ing dot com dot au to quadruple check what interest rates were on offer from ING.

You may be interested in a piece of serious journalism on a similar situation.

Trevor Transferred $1.6m To A Stranger On The Internet. Now He Wants The Banks And The Taxpayer To Bail Him Out.

More to come.
www.betootaadvocate.com
 
The perspective of the scam victim in this instance is absurd.

‘I had my bank account cleaned out and $5000 is all I got back’

With scammers getting increasingly sophisticated, don’t rely on your bank to bail you out.
www.afr.com



Customer provided full remote access to her device, meaning all activity was undetectable.



Stuff like the above really annoys me - the bank was never in a position to need to take responsibility for the scam, the negligent's from the customer is obscene.



Sorry for the rant - articles like this however annoy me a lot. What has happened to personal responsibility.

The solution recommended in the article is more surveillance and more scrutiny around transactions. I can almost guarantee the lady like the one in the article would traditionally be the first to call a service centre screaming at the relevant agent for not letting her have seemless access to her funds.

rant over.
 
The Banks should send a short clip from the movie "The Beekeeper", where the lady gets scammed of a couple of million, by a call centre.

The movie was over the top, but it did show how scammers just get remote access, with people who are computer illiterate.
The opening scene of the clip is at the end of the scam scene, the clip gets a bit rough after that, so be warned.
It would be interesting if scam centers were sorted out this way, recruiting would get difficult for them.

 
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Just had a very amusing half hour with a scammer.
Firstly, the number came up as coming from Port Headland in WA.
Don't know anyone up that way, so straight away was wary, but I answered anyway.
Woman sounding like Filipino told me her name was Angela and she was calling from Telstra.
It seems that my IP address was coming up on their security systems as having become public when it should have been private.
Given that anyone on the internet is in the same boat, I thought I would have a little fun.
Adopting my very old man voice, I strung her along as I played dumb, not having a round thing shaped like a compass on my phone as i only used my phone for making telephone calls.
Next she switched to my home computer, saying it must be the computer having exposed my IP address.
When she asked me if I used my phone or computer for net banking or buying things I told her I went to the shops to buy things.
And I went to the bank to get money, not an ATM.
No I did not have a credit card.
She lost interest and said that she would call back within an hour to tell me what security things I needed to update.
I don't think I will hear from her again.
Mick
 
BossMan. said:
The perspective of the scam victim in this instance is absurd.
Click to expand...

I am going to be cruel here. I am sad the elderly lady lost money. Obviously distressing for her. However, in a nutshell, I feel she is asking for compensation for being stupid.

If you have freedom to spend your money as you wish, then there is, in my opinion, a responsibility on you to be careful so you don't lose it.

It's a fine line. Take away the ability for access and a cry goes up of "Taking away my/their independence." When things go wrong "I should be compensated for being careless/silly/dumb."

Same with that women who lost $1.6m of her mother's money from the sale of a house. I don't understand why the funds were in her account and not her mother's though if I read the story correctly. Rang Mum's bank and they couldn't match the offer but then transferred the money from her, not her Mum's, account.
 
I would have thought that by now that even blind and deaf Freddy would be well aware of the pitfalls when it comes to scams. Is it a case of I believe the hype because the scammer says I am Honest Joe?
We had had one recently when the scammer said to "Her who is never wrong" do you think I am a scammer? quick as a flash she retorted with "of course you are". He hung up instantly.
 
There is no excuse to fall for a Remote Access scam when the text messages quite legitimately state in all capitals "NEVER SHARE THIS CODE!"

If you continue to provide the code to someone on the phone after reading that, the entire event must fall on you, it is not feasible for the financial sector to underwrite extreme negligence.
 
farmerge said:
I would have thought that by now that even blind and deaf Freddy would be well aware of the pitfalls when it comes to scams.
Click to expand...

That's what I don't understand. I'm no towering intellect. Far from it. Yet I've heard of scams and they are common. So when a person gets a message "You have won a prize from {insert name of company}, click here" or similar I fail to appreciate why they don't check the relevant company's website. All of the major companies, financial institutions and Government departments have been the subject of scams I believe and place warnings about it. Sure it may not be obvious where to find it on the site but it doesn't take any great effort to locate it . So why don't people take the blindingly obvious next step? Have their brains been ossified or are they just utterly stupid and cannot be bothered to think apart from how to tie their shoelaces.

Having said that, I know it is possible for me to be scammed. We all are to some extent. However, knowing that you could be heightens (or should) your alertness to the possibility which is a check on being ripped off.

I should mention I am in the age group of the lady who gave remote access to those scammers so age isn't necessarily a factor.
 
For us the giveaway is the area that comes up on the text message if that is their choice of contact.
Eastern States, remote and no so remote WA and overseas is an instant giveaway.
On the email can't be bothered if I don't recognize the email or name.
If I wish to tag them along on the phone, which I do on occasions, then that is a bit of fun for me and my warped sense of humour.
My favourite, if it is a female on the other end, is to offer her a job in the brothel next to where she is calling from. I usually make this suggestion about 10 minutes into the b/s conversation. Then the line goes dead, and I seem to get a little respite from them for a while.
 
BossMan. said:
If you continue to provide the code to someone on the phone after reading that, the entire event must fall on you, it is not feasible for the financial sector to underwrite extreme negligence.
Click to expand...

The solution may be every institution treats clients as complete morons and no matter the reason for contact issue a message the subject title being "Are you an Fwit or not?"
 
Bellcose said:
The solution may be every institution treats clients as complete morons and no matter the reason for contact issue a message the subject title being "Are you an Fwit or not?"
Click to expand...
More so the sender and not the recipient, though sometimes I do wonder.
 
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