Mortgage deposit scams becoming more prevalent in Australia

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Buying a house is meant to be cause for celebration, but for some it’s ending in devastation. Mortgage deposit scams are growing in Australia, and one couple, who lost 250-thousand dollars, want to warn others.

Transcript

00:00Sarah and Lane found their dream home on the Gold Coast, but it wasn't long before it was

00:08taken from them.

00:09The day before settlement was literally when we found out that we'd been pretty much scammed

00:17all of our money.

00:19After successfully bidding for the property, the couple received an email from who they

00:23thought was their conveyancer.

00:25They had the right funds deposit that we needed.

00:29There was no difference to recognise that other than the .au on the end of that email

00:34that I wasn't talking to the real person.

00:37So they went to an ANZ bank branch to transfer more than $250,000.

00:42I said well I'm here's the email and they literally picked up my phone, zoomed in on

00:46the account details on that email, plugged it into their system, did the transfer and

00:51we were none the wiser that anything was wrong.

00:53The money had been transferred to a scam account.

00:57The couple were victims of what's called a spear phishing attack.

01:00These sort of highly targeted attacks I think are much more difficult to pick up and they

01:05play to human behaviour which is a level of comfort with the kind of names and brands

01:09that you're dealing with and we're much more likely unfortunately to fall victim to these.

01:13According to the ACCC, Australians lost more than $16 million in payment redirection scams

01:20in 2023.

01:22The ABC understands the money was not sent overseas but into an Australian account.

01:28The police investigation has uncovered possible suspects including a university student in

01:33Melbourne and the case has been referred to Victoria Police.

01:37ANZ was only able to recover $80,000.

01:41The bank says it's unable to comment on individual customers.

01:45The reality is electronic banking is scary now and we have no control over it.

01:51Their devastation, a warning for others.

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