[Sean Camara]

SCAM ALERT: Mum loses $60,000 after falling for fake Medicare message — here are all the details on the new sophisticated scam​

Perth mum-of-four Storm Tait was taking care of her sick children while managing the family business when she received a text message from Medicare.

The message suggested that she needed to pay a delivery fee of around $1 for a school COVID kit for her kids.

Mrs Tait admitted that she didn't give it any thought at first.

She recalled, "I put in my card information, then my brother messaged me and said don't click on it - it's a scam message.”

However, it was too late as Mrs Tait’s data was already transmitted to the scammers.

Another text regarding the scam appeared in her National Australia Bank (NAB) text thread a week later.

Then she got a call from a number on the NAB list, informing her that her account had been hacked.

The mum shared: “He’d already seen customers losing funds this way, so immediately I panicked thinking, ‘Oh God, I went onto that website’.”

The mum said that she received a series of text messages, urging her to follow some instructions which include transferring thousands of funds to three new NAB accounts to protect herself from scammers. Credit: 7News.​

Mrs Tait then recalled that the caller persuaded her that she needed three new accounts to deceive the con artists.

Then she was instructed to send her funds in $19,000 increments. Tait was unaware that everything was a ruse.

The family's life savings of $60,000 are now gone, with the family business struggling to continue its operations.

The mum admitted that she had a lot going on in her head when the incident happened, confessing that she had a hard time figuring out that she was being scammed.

"This is not right," Mrs Tait said.

Her husband David continued, "She's traumatised from it, she’s got anxiety from it.”

The Taits lost thousands of dollars to a sophisticated scammer who managed to transfer the money out of their account before they could do anything about it. And unfortunately, their bank - NAB - has only been able to recover $74 of the stolen funds.

A Perth family has fallen victim to a new sophisticated scam and lost their lifesavings of $60,000. Credit: 7News.​

NAB Executive Group Investigations and Fraud officer Chris Sheehan explained: “Once the funds have left a victim’s account, it can often be difficult to recover them due to the sophistication of these criminals.”

Imagine losing 60,000 to a scammer, only to retrieve a mere $74? We feel sorry for the family over this devastating loss.

This is a stark reminder of the importance of being vigilant when it comes to scams. But it's also a reminder of how important it is for banks to have robust systems in place to protect their customers.

Consumer Protection WA Commissioner Gary Newcombe has called on banks to start requiring matching of BSB and account names — a similar security system used in the UK.

He said: “These types of scams are run by criminal activity, they’re very sophisticated, very well organised.”

NAB said it will never request a customer to transfer money to another account in order to protect it.

Anyone who receives a call purporting to be from a bank is urged by Consumer Protection to first obtain the caller's identity, position, and place of employment.

Once that individual is not available, hang up and call the company at the number that is published publicly, not one that was provided to you.

So, there you have it, folks. With the increasing scamming cases, we recommend hanging up the phone whenever you receive suspicious calls to keep yourself safe from any scams.

We also recommend checking out the Scam Watch section of the website to stay on top of the latest scamming schemes and tips on how to prevent them.

 

[Ricci]

How do these scammers know whether or not you're worth targeting? I keep less than $500 in my ready use account and a maximum of $4000 in my bill paying account. Anything else is squirreled away with a different institution that even I, the account holder, have difficulty accessing! I have never had a money related scam call. Friends that have more money in accessible accounts have had many such calls, Why?

 

[LH2022]

How do these scammers know whether or not you're worth targeting? I keep less than $500 in my ready use account and a maximum of $4000 in my bill paying account. Anything else is squirreled away with a different institution that even I, the account holder, have difficulty accessing! I have never had a money related scam call. Friends that have more money in accessible accounts have had many such calls, Why?

They don't care how much you have. They target everyone in the hopes anybody will fall for it.

 

[LH2022]

I guess this scam is still sucking people in. There has been HEAPS of news coverage on it already but I guess it continues. Scammers don't care how much you have. They target everyone in the hopes anybody will fall for it. They don't ask for money in the original contact. First they lure you in to click their link, get access to your device and then have many ways of trying to convince people to part with their funds. Sometimes they put fear in the victim like saying the tax dept is after you or that you've been in contact with covid. Sometimes they go for the victim's sense of greed and say if you pay us some money, we'll send you a huge amount of money. Then they say they over paid you and you need to repay them the extra or they lose their jobs. So they go for your greed and then conscience. They're clever and NEVER STOP once they hook you in. Number one rule: NEVER EVER CLICK THE LINK.

I got this text in June this year. I've been warning people ever since to not click links. Just so you know...Medicare NEVER EVER sends texts or emails or has anything to do with covid contacts. I've hidden the link just in case some curious (silly) person decided to investigate. You have to be more suspicious of unknown contacts on any device. If in doubt, look up the official phone number and ask (do not use the phone number given to you in the text or email). Just be smarter and less naive.