Scary way retiree scammed out of $26K

Bill Hall told 9News he thought he was paying a $26,000 invoice from a builder during renovations on his home.

But instead the email had been intercepted by hackers, who had altered the invoice with different bank details.

“About three weeks later, I got a phone call from the Bendigo Bank fraud people and they were saying there’s a discrepancy between the name on the account and the number of the account that I transferred the money to,” the 76-year-old told the broadcaster.

Mr Hall, from Hurstbridge, northeast of Melbourne, now wants the bank to reimburse his money, saying it failed to check the name of the builder against the fake account number.

“I’m really frustrated that this obvious failure within the banking system, [it’s] just been sort of swept under the carpet being totally ignored,” the grandfather said.

“It’s very concerning. I’m a self-funded retiree, so I’ll have to just sell up some of my investments to actually pay this $20,000, so that means that the weekly amount is a bit less. There’s people who would probably be worse off than me, it could probably be ruinous for some people.”

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Gerard Brody from the Consumer Action Law Centre told 9News banks should take more responsibility when customers fall victims to scams.

“We’re calling on the government to set clearer rules for banks so that they are required to detect and prevent scam losses, but also that they are required to reimburse scam victims,” Mr Brody said.

Earlier this year, Perth blogger Constance Hall said her savings were “wiped out” after she fell victim to the same type of scam.

Known as a payment redirection scam, it involves email accounts being hacked or cloned, followed by requests for money.

The people behind the scam hack into email accounts and get information about financial transactions underway.

Payment redirection scams often target property transactions due to the large sums involved.

“The scam particularly targets victims who may be expecting a message like this and are less likely to question it,” WA ScamNet says.

“Payment redirection takes place when scammers change the bank account so the money ends up being transferred into the wrong account.”

Hall revealed to her 1.3 million followers that she “felt stupid” and was “devastated” after she paid money through an email link to what she thought was a real estate agency to secure a rental property for her and her children, only for the recipient to be a fraudster.

“At first I felt stupid, how could I let that happen?” she wrote in a Facebook post.

“But I am a business woman, I pay large sums internationally often, I’m scam savvy and don’t pay anything that hasn’t come from a known contact with a credible email history, so no I’m not stupid. This could have literally happened to anyone desperate to get a rental.”

Consumer Protection WA later issued a press release which appeared to refer to Hall’s case, although the agency said it would not confirm any details of the victims or estate agent involved.

“A woman who was relocating from a regional area to Perth paid $10,400 following an email exchange with the scammer who was masquerading as the property manager,” it said.

“She had also sent personal and financial information as well as identification documents,” it said.

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Australians lost about $2 billion to scams last year, however that figure could be much higher as many people feel too ashamed to report losses.

It comes as Australians are urged to be on the lookout for scams following the massive Optus data breach, which saw the personal information of nearly 10 million current and former customers stolen by hackers.