[Stanier123]

Story sounds to me like they did do a lot of research but still got fooled (it wasnt exactly a get rich quick thing, but a gradual process of extracted the money from the victims.

Why lay blame on the poor victims? Your turn may come any time as these scum bag scammers are extremely clever & use quite sophisticated means to extract money from unsuspecting hard working every day people- hell these ones weren't even old & gullible being in their 30's!
It sounds like they were vigilant & did a lot of research before "investing" in this scam- & a it was a gradual process of tricking them out of hard earned life savings, rather than a get rich quick event!

I guess sometimes with people, it looks greener on the other side of the fence with $

Perhaps the hapless investors should have diversified instead of having all their eggs in one basket. Lesson to us all.

 

[VJB]

If there is any bright side to this sad story, it is that this particular couple are young enough to start again and I wish them all the luck in the world in doing so with a lot more knowledge of the dark side than they had before. But what if the people in question had been in their late 60s?

It happened to me and my husband I am 69 and my husband is 74, but to top it all off they got me at my most vunerable. My husband was in an accident and suffered significant brain injury, he is now non verbal and a 2 assist hoist, I thought I was going to make our life easier, when we sold our investment properties, I didn't have my partner to discuss it with and they make you feel like you are one of the most important people they sympathize with you and tell you all the things you want to hear, and suddenly all you money has gone, then they keep badgering for more money telling you to borrow some against the house, I finally realized before I had lost everything. I am just thankful that my husband doesn't understand or realize what a mess I made with all our hard earn money. We now live from week to week on a pension.

 

[Cheezil]

Pretty sure the hard working ones like us here, been doing it wrong working hard 40 plus yrs of our lives, getting penalized from every angle & then the high risk/chance of getting scammed & losing all we worked for to top things off only to (usually) be fobbed off by the banks & orher such institutions (rather than expect them to help us recoop our money they dont want to help us at all in any way & even make it extremely difficult to even contact them at all in mant/most cases!! Once upon a time not very long ago the banks would assist or cover our losses wit their insurance, but rarely if ever hear of that happening now times!

Maybe we should all go into the fraud/scamming business, easy big money $'s with little or no retribution on the rare chance you might get caught (slap on the knuckles/small fine)? Or start selling illegal drugs for a living, consequences for that can't be too harsh if caught either??
Talk about out of balance/unfair system/law we live with these days!

 

[HollyC]

I am truly saddened by the unworthy comments from so many of you. Why is it greedy to make your hard earned money give some extra income? We are 67 and 81 and had 100,000 saved after downsizing. Not a lot to see us safely through old age. We only have the age pension. We lost it all to scammers after seeking a savings account to earn 4.5% - not a huge get rich quick deal - through a comparison website we had used before and is still very much in evidence. We obviously thought the follow up call from that enquiry from Citibank - I'm sure you've heard of that institution - was quite legitimate. You lucky ones who have never been tricked thus have no idea how clever these people are. English and Australian voices. Not Asian. Perfect documentation and cleverly crafted authenticating information when we did our due diligence to check. I would challenge any of you heartless critics to have been any wiser than we were. What would be more helpful than braying 'greed, greed greed' at us would be to lobby the financial institutions who allow their customers' funds to go astray to implement more diligence in their duty of care to our money which they hold. The truth of the matter is that Australians are targeted by scammers BECAUSE the banks here are so slack. Other countries have, which is why the scammer's attention is focused on us as we are prime pickings. Check articles on consumeraction.org about this before you start slinging your nastiness around. We certainly are suffering for our trusting nature. We don't need any more knives thrown at us, fellow Aussies.

 

[Cheezil]

Thankyou for this comment, I've not yet been targeted (or I've been onto it when I have), but I'm so sorry you have been thru this & agree 100% with your whole comment (have read articles regarding the institutions here not protecting us enough). Definitely don't need to be careless to get caught out, can happen to anyone, even the knife throwers you mention, as cocky as they are!

 

[MindyMac]

I wont even do any online banking, even having credit card statements and/or bank statements sent to me via email. I also refuse to have any account of any kind linked to my mobile phone. Online grocery shopping etc.. it's just not safe. I see people using the iphones to scan and pay for items, even things like Woolworth's Rewards membership. Coles Fly Buys ..etc.. All of this links culprits to people's identities. I have SKIM GUARD cards and have three (3) of these in my wallet/handbag because these days people walk past in shopping centres, supermarkets, stores of every kind, cafes, restaurants, streets, parks, ..etc.. and the 'skimming device' skims the black strip of every card you have on you and the iphones as well. SKIM GUARD cards protect you. You can purchase them via TVSN (the television shopping channel that are Australian). The SKIM GUARD cards protect you. Everyone should have at least two of these on them, in a iphone case (also available). These sell out rather fast as well on the TVSN when aired, but they still have some for sale now. Do wish that Senior's Discount Club did a report on this as not everyone reads peoples comments.

 

[Penny4]

I wont even do any online banking, even having credit card statements and/or bank statements sent to me via email. I also refuse to have any account of any kind linked to my mobile phone. Online grocery shopping etc.. it's just not safe. I see people using the iphones to scan and pay for items, even things like Woolworth's Rewards membership. Coles Fly Buys ..etc.. All of this links culprits to people's identities. I have SKIM GUARD cards and have three (3) of these in my wallet/handbag because these days people walk past in shopping centres, supermarkets, stores of every kind, cafes, restaurants, streets, parks, ..etc.. and the 'skimming device' skims the black strip of every card you have on you and the iphones as well. SKIM GUARD cards protect you. You can purchase them via TVSN (the television shopping channel that are Australian). The SKIM GUARD cards protect you. Everyone should have at least two of these on them, in a iphone case (also available). These sell out rather fast as well on the TVSN when aired, but they still have some for sale now. Do wish that Senior's Discount Club did a report on this as not everyone reads peoples comments. View attachment 11342

My card got skimmed a few years ago at a shopping centre. I knew because I used an ATM & it wouldn't accept my card. The display screen said my card was cancelled. I rang my bank. They informed me that they blocked the money from being withdrawn & had to cancel my card. The only issue was I had to wait a week before I received a replacement card.
You don't need to keep buying those protection cards, as you can buy RFID wallets & RFID card holders at bags shops.