In an alarming turn of events that serves as a stark reminder to all of us, an Australian man has fallen victim to a sophisticated property settlement scam, losing a staggering $153,000.

This cautionary tale begins with routine correspondence with his settlement agent but ends in financial disaster when cunning scammers intercept the emails and dupe the unsuspecting homeowner.

With a keen eye for detail, the scammers crafted an email that closely mimicked the legitimate communications from the settlement agent.

They then cunningly switched the bank account details to their own, setting the stage for their deceitful act.

The West Australian man, trusting the process and the apparent authenticity of the email, should have noticed the slight variation in the email address.

An Aussie lost $150,000 in a property settlement scam. Credit: Shutterstock

This incident has sounded the alarm nationwide and prompted authorities to warn about the rise of payment redirection scams.

In Western Australia alone, 11 individuals have reported a combined loss of over half a million dollars to such scams this year.

While property transactions are the most common targets, the reach of these fraudsters extends to vehicle purchases, building contracts, and even funeral payments.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) deputy chair, Catriona Lowe, revealed that Australians lost $16.2 million to payment redirection scams last year.

‘We know of an Australian man who lost more than $35,000 after scammers compromised the email account of the car dealership he was buying a car from,’ she recounted.

‘After paying the deposit securely through the dealership’s official website, he received an email with an invoice for the remaining amount owed, which he paid thinking it was genuine.’

‘When he went to pick up his new car, he found out that the invoice was a scam and the dealership had only received his deposit.’

These scams typically target high-value transactions. Fraudsters hack into email accounts to gather information about ongoing financial dealings.

They then create a nearly identical email address or, in some cases, take control of the business's email account.

Victims, expecting a legitimate request for payment, are less likely to scrutinise the details and fall prey to the scam.

WA Commerce Minister Sue Ellery expressed her concern over the devastating impact of these scams.

‘They can be people who have been saving for years for a home deposit that has now been lost to scammers, or it could be a business doing it tough that can least afford to lose a large amount of money,’ she said.

‘People working in the industries where large amounts of money are being transacted, and consumers need to be extra vigilant when acting on payment requests.’

‘Be suspicious of any email asking for a payment of money or advising of a change in bank account details to where payments are to be sent.’

Similarly, a couple fell victim to a fake invoice scam, losing $275,000, contributing to the reported $16.2 million in losses from payment redirection scams in 2023.

Criminals impersonated businesses, altering invoice payment details to divert funds to their accounts. Read more about this story here.

Key Takeaways

• A man in Western Australia lost over $150,000 in a property settlement scam involving intercepted emails.
• The scammers pretended to be the man's settlement agent and provided false bank account details for payment.
• Consumer Protection’s WA ScamNet and the ACCC warned about the increase in payment redirection scams targeting various high-value transactions.
• Authorities urged consumers and businesses to be vigilant when responding to emails requesting payments or notifying changes in payment details.

Have you or someone you know encountered a similar scam? Share your experiences in the comments below.

 

[Liz]

I have had 10 supposedly from Telstra saying they are saying they are sorry to see me go. The web address looks authentic but I forwawded it to Telstra's phising email. Cannot trust anyone these days.

 

[Luckyus]

I don't any bastard without verification?

 

[mylittletibbies]

This scam has been going on for quite some time now, especially with property.
Our conveyancer always sends out warnings, along with all the necessary documents for signing. This includes the correct banking details.
Prior to settlement they then confirm these details again and then request us to ring their office again before transferring the funds.
Triple verification but quite a good idea where such large amounts of money are concerned.

 

[Rob44]

It has got to the point that the internet can no longer be trusted, and yet the banks insist on having us do business via the internet/plastic card and are ending our use of cheque-books.

 

[KaraJenna]

Another! Yesterday got account from internet provider. Had been notified it was coming in the transfer of email accounts of previous provider to another provider. Email included this detail plus a couple of others so thought genuine. So went through procedure to pay account until did not receive verification code. Sometimes it is slow to come through in my experience. Eventually emailed company about it, to be informed it was a scam! They were not very helpful about what I needed to do. I knew I needed to contact bank, too late in day. A few more hiccups, car would not start to go and notify them. Can't find number to ring. Bit much for a late eighties village dweller in the sticks to cope with,

 

[Squizzy1]

Yes, going cashless will be great, every transaction a potential scam, supported by the Financial Industry.

 

[Rob44]

Another! Yesterday got account from internet provider. Had been notified it was coming in the transfer of email accounts of previous provider to another provider. Email included this detail plus a couple of others so thought genuine. So went through procedure to pay account until did not receive verification code. Sometimes it is slow to come through in my experience. Eventually emailed company about it, to be informed it was a scam! They were not very helpful about what I needed to do. I knew I needed to contact bank, too late in day. A few more hiccups, car would not start to go and notify them. Can't find number to ring. Bit much for a late eighties village dweller in the sticks to cope with,

Some banks, bless their little hearts, provide a 24/7 emergency number to telephone in such situations. It would be somewhere on the bank statement and no doubt the process could involve a convoluted process of pressing buttons on your telephone to get to a human being to whom you could speak.

 

[Rob44]

Here we go again, new news about old news, source, Al Jazeera, this morning:

"The data of nearly all customers of the telecommunications giant AT&T was downloaded to a third-party platform in a security breach, the company has said, as cyberattacks against businesses, schools and health systems continue to spread globally.

The breach, which was announced by the company on Friday, took place largely over five months in 2022. It hit customers of AT&T’s mobile customers, customers of mobile virtual network operators using AT&T’s wireless network, as well as its landline customers who interacted with those cellular numbers.

Approximately 109 million customer accounts were affected, according to AT&T, which said that it currently does not believe that the data is publicly available.

“The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information,” AT&T said Friday.

The compromised data also does not include some information typically seen in usage details, such as the time stamp of calls or texts, the company said, or customer names. AT&T, however, said that there are often ways using publicly available online tools to find the name associated with a specific telephone number.

Cybersecurity experts concurred, saying that such data can be used to trace users.

“While the information that was exposed doesn’t directly have sensitive information, it can be used to piece together events and who may be calling who. This could impact people’s private lives as private calls and connections could be exposed,” Thomas Richards, principal consultant at Synopsys Software Integrity Group, said in an emailed statement. “The business phone numbers will be easy to identify and private numbers can be matched to names with public record searches.” "

To misquote Rear Admiral Beattie , when German shellfire had destroyed two of his battle-cruisers at the Battle of Jutland (the year before a pig 's flu virus jumped to a US Army cook thus triggering the Spanish flu pandemic), "There is something wrong with our bloody internet today'".

 

[maxesmum]

Another good reason to go into your bank and personally oversee the transactions of large sums of money. It’s just not worth the heartache. Take 20 minutes out of your day and save yourself the misery.

 

[marni]

Yes, going cashless will be great, every transaction a potential scam, supported by the Financial Industry.

Already having great problems overseas. Cannot remember which country has gone cashless but was on Apple News

 

[Silverfoxed]

Another! Yesterday got account from internet provider. Had been notified it was coming in the transfer of email accounts of previous provider to another provider. Email included this detail plus a couple of others so thought genuine. So went through procedure to pay account until did not receive verification code. Sometimes it is slow to come through in my experience. Eventually emailed company about it, to be informed it was a scam! They were not very helpful about what I needed to do. I knew I needed to contact bank, too late in day. A few more hiccups, car would not start to go and notify them. Can't find number to ring. Bit much for a late eighties village dweller in the sticks to cope with,

The number to call is on the back of your banks EFTPOS/Credit Card. Should only call that number not any sourced elsewhere.

 

[Silverfoxed]

Another good reason to go into your bank and personally oversee the transactions of large sums of money. It’s just not worth the heartache. Take 20 minutes out of your day and save yourself the misery.

Last time I did this, the banks concierge asked if I had the bank app on phone and rather than allowing me to proceed to see a teller they showed me how to change the daily limit for transfer and use their app to do it. An unimpressed experience as far as I was concerned. I think it's time for the banks to ALL change to allow us to put a release code in any transfer we choose so that the money is withheld unless the valid recipient has the code that a sender will provide to them. Would save a lot of lost money in transfers to scammers (noting there would still be some folks who would give the code to a scammer over the phone (sigh)).

 

[KaraJenna]

Some banks, bless their little hearts, provide a 24/7 emergency number to telephone in such situations. It would be somewhere on the bank statement and no doubt the process could involve a convoluted process of pressing buttons on your telephone to get to a human being to whom you could speak.

Problem with that was being put through to another help line after taking my details, we were in a queue for 3/4 hour, to find out if money still in account! Fortunately I don't bite my nails, I would have been down to the quick, at the bottom! I was lucky. Now to notify my direct debit people there will be a new card, when it arrives. Thankfully do not do internet banking. Too risky.

 

[Rob44]

Problem with that was being put through to another help line after taking my details, we were in a queue for 3/4 hour, to find out if money still in account! Fortunately I don't bite my nails, I would have been down to the quick, at the bottom! I was lucky. Now to notify my direct debit people there will be a new card, when it arrives. Thankfully do not do internet banking. Too risky.

Just found the bank's number on the back of my credit card. So small I had to use a magnifying glass to read it. However, when I needed to call the bank's 24/7 service after hours I found the emergency number, which is a bit different, on my bank statement and large enough to read. After the usual rubbish of we have so many calls we can be barely bothered to answer the phone so please hang around a bit and the press 1 if you want to shoot someone because we don't answer the phone or 2 if you want to hang around a bit longer without shooting someone I finally got through to a probably grossly underpaid but very patient Philippina in a far-flung call centre who fixed things for me.

I am old enough to recall being able to stop a cheque from being cleared by using instant communication through my fax machine. The advantage of a paper cheque is that at the earliest it wouldn't get cleared for three days and the advantage of a fax machine is that you use your handwriting and a signature which one's bank can verify. And the bank then sends a reply by fax confirming that your request has been actioned. How much more efficient, and secure is that?

There was no need in 1994 to remember your passcode, now probably already in the hands of a scammer thanks to those 10million passwords that have been stolen and/or ATT's data breach that in 2022 gave away data from 109 million people, as you didn't need one.