General News
18 December, 2023
Local bankers save resident from $10K scam
Nearly falling victim to a complex scam that risked her losing about $10,000, a Maryborough woman has managed to safeguard her money thanks to the intervention of two local vigilant bankers. Deeply ensnared in a manipulative and criminal scheme, an...
Nearly falling victim to a complex scam that risked her losing about $10,000, a Maryborough woman has managed to safeguard her money thanks to the intervention of two local vigilant bankers.
Deeply ensnared in a manipulative and criminal scheme, an elderly resident in her 80s, recently visited the Maryborough National Australia Bank (NAB) — asking to withdraw the five-figure sum to pay her “adult children back for a holiday”.
The banker on the day, Penny Hyde, found it unusual that the woman, who was a regular and had just visited the bank the day before, would need to come in again so soon to make a large withdrawal.
Spotting potential “scam red flags”, Ms Hyde along with branch manager Emily Grogan, asked the customer relevant questions following which they decided to not complete the transaction.
“Wanting that large sum of money was very out of character for her,” Ms Hyde said.
“I was curious as to why she needed those funds and with the [scam focused] training we’re given, it’s part of the job to find out what’s happening.
“She said she was going on a holiday, to which I asked if it was okay for me to call the family and get a confirmation but she declined.”
Ms Hyde still needed to make appropriate checks and asked the customer if it was possible to get an itinerary for the trip — that’s when the woman grabbed Ms Hyde’s hand and said, “I need my money straightaway”.
“Then it hit me that she was being scammed,” Ms Hyde said.
“I asked her to tell me what was going on but she refused to tell me anything, she just insisted on getting her money.”
What followed, Ms Hyde said, still gives her “goosebumps”.
After telling the customer she was being scammed, the woman “awkwardly placed her handbag on the counter”, and that’s when things started to click for both Ms Hyde and Ms Grogan, the manager.
The pair suspected someone was listening to their conversation and asked the woman if someone had asked her to come in to take the money out — in response to which, the woman pointed to her purse and took out her phone.
“I asked her if the scammer was on the call and she nodded — he had been listening the entire time,” Ms Hyde said.
“I took the phone and tried to talk to him, I think he panicked and accused me of ringing him, then we went back and forth after which he hung up.
“He realised he had been caught and that’s when I think the realisation sunk into the customer as well about what had happened and she told us everything.”
As part of a phishing scheme, the woman had been contacted by a scammer who said he was from a scam-watch organisation and falsely convinced her that she had already lost some money — with the scammer promising he’d help her get it back.
He then asked her to withdraw $10,000 from the local NAB branch and deposit it into another scam account — he also convinced her to lie to the bank staff about the transaction and demanded to stay on the phone when she went to the bank.
“It was a very elaborate scam,” Ms Hyde said.
“The scammer ordered a taxi as well to take the woman to the bank. Before this he also tried to get her to transfer funds online but our fraud team picked that up and put a stop to it which is why he got her to come in.
“Thankfully we could stop it. We do training like this quite often to look out for potential scams — it’s our job to make sure that everyone is safe.”
According to Ms Grogan, with the number of attempted scams going up, it has never been more important to stay alert and question everything.
“There’s scams through e-mails, SMS, phone calls — there are scams everywhere,” she said.
“A lot of the time people will get calls from scammers pretending to be from NAB or they’ll pretend to be from the debt collection office or another place and they try to scare people.
“When that happens, people should just come down to the bank or get in touch with us. We can then confirm whether the phone call was true or not.”
NAB’s job, like other banks, is to ensure their customers are protected, Ms Grogan said.
“We want people to come in whenever they get suspicious messages or calls — we want to stop a scam before it even gets started,” she said.
“It’s also important to remember that we don’t ask for any personal information over the phone. We don’t send anything with links either and if there’s anything, it will generally be password protected.
“Another service we offer is around invoices — we can confirm whether a BSB or account number is accurate. But whatever the case may be, we urge people to get in touch with us before they transfer funds in relation to anything suspicious.”
Maryborough locals can contact NAB on 5460-4500, if they have any questions regarding scams.