A young Melbourne couple says their big plans are “canned” after they lost their entire life savings to a sophisticated banking scam.
The criminals posed as Westpac staff and spent days winning James Green and Sarah Gerendarsi’s trust, all in an effort to get their grubby hands on $100,000.
SEE THE VIDEO ABOVE: Young couple scammed out of $100,000 dollars
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It started when Green received a phishing text message purportedly from Uber asking him to click a link and update his credit card details, which he did.
Ninety minutes later he got a text, this time seemingly from Westpac, saying scammers were trying to transfer $5500 from his account.
The message, which told him to call the bank’s security team, appeared to be from a legitimate Westpac number.
But it wasn’t and the couple was about to fall victim to a scamming technique known as spoofing, where criminals disguise their caller ID as a phone number of a legitimate business to trick their target.
“He seemed like a trustworthy person. He had a British accent and was very well-spoken,” Green said.
The articulate scammer advised the 27-year-old to open a new bank account and move his money there to keep it safe from fraudsters.
Green transferred his savings in three transactions after increasing his daily withdrawal limit and just four days later, close to $100,000 was gone.
Green said the…
