An Australian woman narrowly avoided losing her life savings of over $100,000 to a scammer. The NAB customer was contacted by someone she believed to be a member of the bank’s staff, claiming her account had been hacked.

Laura* thought she was transferring nearly $5,000 at the request of a NAB banker after being contacted by phone, who claimed this was done to “secure” her account.

However, when she started making the transfers, NAB’s actual fraud scheme was triggered as there were red flags in the transactions, including evidence that her laptop was being accessed remotely.

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Jimmy Nguyen, a fraud analyst at NAB, was on the phone with Laura within minutes and explained to her that he suspected she was the target of scammers.

“We use biometric technology as part of our fraud detection system and the first red flag for us was an alert telling us that their screen was either shared with someone or accessed remotely,” Nguygen said.

“The criminals had persuaded Laura to download software that gave them remote access to her device.

“They told her she needed the application so they could explain how to make a payment to secure her account. But once they were in her device, they spied on her activities.”

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The moment the penny dropped

Nguygen said the scammers convinced Laura not to reveal any information about the transactions, and her story kept changing throughout the phone call.

“I told Laura that NAB would never call her and ask her to do anything that could compromise her security, such as sharing a one-time PIN, transferring money to another account, giving us remote access to her devices or disclosing personal information,” he said.

Nguygen said NAB temporarily blocked Laura’s account to ensure the scammers could not steal the money in her account.

The story continues

“There was a risk that the criminals could access Laura’s account and transfer her $120,000 in savings into her account,” he said.

Nguygen said it took Laura a week to process the situation and realize she had been deceived.

134 million dollars lost through fraud

According to data from Scamwatch, Australians have lost more than $134 million to fraud this year, including more than $4.7 million from remote access scams.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it had observed a sharp increase in the proportion of losses caused by remote access fraud, with reported losses jumping 52 percent in the first quarter of 2024.

“We are very concerned that fraudsters are raiding entire bank accounts, with average losses from remote access fraud now running into the tens of thousands,” said ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe.

“Financial criminals use sophisticated emails, web-based pop-up messages and phone calls to impersonate well-known companies like Microsoft and trick people into believing there is a problem with their account, computer or phone that needs to be fixed.”

Scammers often contact people out of the blue and may sound professional on the phone. They may ask you to download screen sharing software such as AnyDesk, Zoho or Teamviewer, which will give them access to your bank accounts.

Australians should “be vigilant”

Chris Sheehan, head of investigations at NAB Group, said scammers are masters at manipulating your emotions and creating a sense of fear or urgency.

“Their goal is to pressure the person to act quickly and share personal information or make a payment themselves. That’s why it’s so important to be vigilant,” he said.

According to NAB, fraud prevention measures such as biometric technology and the ability to view and hold payments in real time and send alerts would have reduced customer losses by 17 percent between October 2023 and March 2024.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has released a report on the 15 banks outside the Big Four, finding that bank customers bore the brunt of losses from fraud, accounting for 96 percent of losses in 2022 and 2023. This is in line with previous findings for the major banks.

*Name changed for privacy reasons

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