As technology continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, so do the strategies utilised by scammers, posing new challenges for individuals and businesses alike.

A recent incident served as a stark reminder of this reality, as an Australian small business owner finds themselves grappling with a staggering loss of $50,000 due to a cunning scam.

The business owner, who asked to go by the name Jenny, and her husband are both running a small healthcare business.

They first noticed something amiss on January 9 when she received a call from National Australia Bank (NAB).

A small business owner lost $50,000 to a deceptive phone scam. Image source: Taylor Grote/Unsplash

The bank alerted her to suspicious activity on her account. However, mere minutes after the call, both her and her husband's phones went into SOS mode and couldn't be unlocked.

The couple later discovered that their numbers had been 'ported' to devices owned by the fraudsters.

This allowed the scammers to receive the two-factor authentication codes required to access their accounts.

Over two days, the fraudsters drained $50,000 from Jenny's NAB, St George, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), and PayPal accounts.

Jenny stated: ‘I'd never heard of porting before, and even some of the people when you go into the banks say, ''What's that?''’

'If you have credit cards somewhere, they can open new cards, and then they just go crazy,’ she added.

'We went to our business phone centre, and they said, ''It looks like something happened in Melbourne.'' And they said ring back at 2'oclock on a public phone.’

'Well, I called back at 2 pm on a public phone—which don't all work, by the way—and as soon as I answered, he said go and get two $10 sim cards from your nearest Telstra retailer and put them in your phones.’

'We were like, “What is going on?''’ Jenny recalled.

When someone pretending to be Jenny called the bank to ask for an increase in her credit limit so she could buy a car for her daughter, that’s when NAB was first alerted.

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), number porting scams are a rising threat. These scams involve scammers posing as you to persuade your telco to transfer your number to a device they own.

Once a hacker gains access to your personal information, such as name, address, or passwords, they can make transfers or obtain credit under your accounts and quickly drain them.

'We've got no idea how this porting happened,' Jenny said.

'It takes over your life, we've had to get new licenses, new passports, new Medicare cards, my Apple account is gone, and it takes 30 to 40 days to get any money back,’ she continued.

Jenny reported that her accounts were on hold, and she was trying to retrieve her money.

'St George stopped them at the gate, they only got $50 because they were onto it straight away,’ she shared. ‘NAB has been quite good.’

According to her, the remaining amount of money is being returned gradually and in small quantities.

From 2018 to 2019, it is estimated that Australians have lost around $5.4 million due to porting scams.

Since the introduction of new rules by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in 2020, checks around porting have been tightened to reduce the impact of scams.

In 2021, Telstra, Optus, and Medion Mobile received warnings from ACMA regarding the need for more strict identity verification processes before porting numbers.

If you believe you have fallen victim to a scam or identity theft, please report it to https://portal.scamwatch.gov.au/report-a-scam/ and seek assistance from https://www.idcare.org/.

You can watch a separate incident of a porting scam here:

Source: ABC News (Australia)/Youtube​

Key Takeaways

• A business owner named Jenny lost $50,000 to scammers who ported her phone number to gain access to her bank accounts.
  
• The scammers managed to take control of both Jenny and her husband's phones shortly after the National Australia Bank (NAB) noticed suspicious activity.
  
• The fraudsters hit multiple accounts, including NAB, St George, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), and PayPal over two days.
  
• Although new rules were introduced in 2020 to mitigate the risk of number porting scams, fraudsters continue to find ways to bypass security measures, leading to significant losses for victims.
  

Have you ever experienced a similar scam? Share your experiences and tips for avoiding scams in the comments below.

 

[Col@45]

This is very worrying that these criminals can do this.....banks have to increase security to NOT allow this to happen ! The scammers are getting smarter, so the banks need to get smarter.....and us too !

 

[LeahI]

Nothing is safe to do anymore

 

[Noel D]

CASH ONLY NO MOBILE APPS HOW CAN THEY SCAM THAT BRING CASH ONLY PLEASE

 

[Rob44]

Nothing is safe to do anymore

Chuck your mobile phone in the deep blue sea and do not do internet banking or buy stuff through internet businesses. It's that simple and more easily said than done these days. Pay by cheque if buying stuff remotely; cheques can be stopped if necessary. Oh, the banks are abolishing cheque-books.

 

[Reet]

Chuck your mobile phone in the deep blue sea and do not do internet banking or buy stuff through internet businesses. It's that simple and more easily said than done these days. Pay by cheque if buying stuff remotely; cheques can be stopped if necessary. Oh, the banks are abolishing cheque-books.

You haven't realised obviously, that banks in the most part no longer use cheques. They have made them invalid.

 

[Keswickian]

Porting is the responsibility of the mobile phone Companies. They're the ones that need to tighten up their procedures.

 

[Rob44]

You haven't realised obviously, that banks in the most part no longer use cheques. They have made them invalid.

I have realised, obviously (read my post again; last sentence), that the banks no longer wish to provide us with this very convenient facility as they can save (make additional profits) money by not doing so.

 

[Miss Chris]

I think that the banks and the mobile phone companies and mobile phone users need to pull their socks up……Mobile phone companies need to provide adequate apps to keep our information secure, and the mobile phone users need to make sure that they do everything they can, to keep their information protected and secured as much as possible from scammers and hackers…….The banks are forcing us into doing our business their way and I feel that when someone is forced into doing something they don’t want to do, that our freedom of choice is severely compromised…….We live in an ostensibly free country, and we should have the freedom to choose how we do things…….Banks (and Government) are supposed to work for us, but more and more we see them using our money for personal gain in some way……

 

[DrivingGirl]

Porting is the responsibility of the mobile phone Companies. They're the ones that need to tighten up their procedures.

Absolutely- the fault for this lies with them and it appears they have already received warnings from the ACMA! Looks like they have ignored them or this recent case shouldn’t have happened.
Not much we can do in this case- everything is geared towards electronic everything - for the convenience of banks: Centrelink: ATO: and all the rest of them so they better step up and wear the costs of any losses.