Justin Meyers, from Mordialloc in Victoria, was looking forward to celebrating St Pats Race Day with friends this year at the Gary Radford Pavilion. But his plans were derailed after falling victim to an invoice scam which has cost him and his group more than $9000.
The scam occurred after Mr Meyers received an invoice for 38 spots at the St. Pat’s Races, which he promptly paid after receiving an email with updated banking details.
However, when he later contacted the St Pat’s office for a refund following a couple of cancellations from within his group, he was told he had not actually paid for the spots, and that the updated banking details he had received were incorrect – in short, a serious fraud had occured.
He had been scammed out of nearly $10,000.
“Even the lady at the St Pats office was saying things like ‘wow’ and ‘it looks so professional’ but unfortunately, she also confirmed it wasn’t them and they hadn’t changed their bank details,” Mr Meyers told the Barrier Truth.
Mr Meyers says the situation has only got worse since he began dealing with the banks involved. His bank – the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) – and the scammer’s bank, AMP.
“The initial response, from the first phone call to the Commonwealth Bank, was yeah we will see what we can do, but it is unlikely you will get your money back,” Mr Meyers told the Barrier Truth.
The Commonwealth Bank attempted to retrieve the money from the scammer’s account but were unsuccessful.
A Commonwealth Bank spokesperson told us they can’t speak about specific investigations but did acknowledge, “the impact scams are having on customers and the community broadly”.
“Once we have been made aware of a scam on an account, we work closely with other banks to act and we do our best to recover any funds,” the spokesperson said.
Mr Meyers was told by the CBA it would take up to six weeks to investigate. Having been thoroughly dissatisfied by the response from his bank, Mr Meyers contacted the other financial institution involved, the AMP.
“I thought, well, the AMP bank I think have got some connection here. It was quite clearly an AMP bank account [that the scammer used].”
The AMP has elevated the issue to an official complaint. But Mr Meyers remains nearly $10,000 out of pocket after covering his group’s St Pats adventure.
While waiting for an initial response from the AMP Bank, Mr Meyers had a deposit back into his account of a paltry $51, apparently all that was left in the scammer’s account.
“I would consider that as sort of accepting there’s been a misdirection of funds from my account to that AMP account. And that it’s probably obvious that it is a fraud.”
Unfortunately for Mr Meyers, it seems the time elapsed between him initially contacting the AMP and the scam occurring may have hurt his chances of retrieving his stolen funds.
“We empathise with Mr Meyers’s situation and have done all we can to assist and return available funds. It is a reminder that all members of the public need to stay vigilant,” said an AMP spokesperson.
“In instances where people are concerned that they may have been scammed, it is critical they contact their financial institution as quickly as possible to increase the chances of stopping the scam payments or recovering those funds once transferred.”
Mr Meyers has involved local police, the Victoria State Police, and Federal Scam Watch, as well as the banking ombudsman.
“The Victoria Police haven’t got back to me with anything. I’ve had to chase it up at the local level with the officer I dealt with at Mordialloc, where I live in Melbourne. I haven’t got a response back from them yet. The Banking Ombudsman have said they’ve pushed AMP and I’ve got a letter from AMP saying that they are further investigating it. The Commonwealth Bank, they’ve appointed this investigation officer.”
He says there is something wrong at a base level of banking operations if someone can be scammed so easily.
“The bank deposit was to St Pat’s Races Inc. That was the name on the transfer. Yes, the numbers were incorrect. But I mean there should be some responsibility for making sure that if it’s going to St Pat’s that it goes into a St Pat’s bank account.
“And another thing that the Commonwealth Bank did was they initially sent me a notification that they were delaying the transaction for 24 hours for security reasons because it was my first transaction with that account.
“Now I took that as them investigating and ensuring the transaction was secure, but when I put it to them, they told me ‘Well, that’s for you to make sure the numbers and bank account is correct, not us’.”
The CBA spokesperson told us, “we are implementing new scam detection, prevention, and education initiatives to keep more customers safe, including our NameCheck tool.
“Our NameCheck technology reviews the bank account details entered for first time payments via the CommBank app or NetBank and gives customers an indication of whether the name and account details they entered look right based on our available data and past payment transactions. It can help reduce false billing scams and mistaken payments.”
Similarly, the AMP spokesperson told us “protecting the community against fraudulent activity is an ongoing focus for AMP Bank and when we identify or become aware of a scam, we act promptly to protect those impacted. This includes blocking accounts and working with other banks to return funds where possible.
“We also have a range of measures in place to protect our customers and the community, including a dedicated fraud team, priority phone line to report suspected scams or fraud, account monitoring and identity verification systems.”
Unfortunately it seems neither new technology, nor failsafes have protected Mr Meyers. And that is a stark reminder to remain vigilant when banking online.
