Yahoo Finance Phone call that nearly cost NAB customer $120,000 life savings: ‘Spying’
Scammers were able to access the woman's laptop and spy on her activity.
An Australian woman has narrowly avoided losing her life savings of more than $100,000 to a scammer. The NAB customer was contacted by someone she thought was from the bank, who claimed her account had been compromised.
Laura* thought she was transferring nearly $5,000 at the request of a NAB banker, after she was contacted over the phone. They claimed this had to be done to “secure” her account.
However, when she started making the transfers, NAB’s real fraud system was triggered because the transactions had red flags, including signs her laptop was being remotely accessed.
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NAB fraud assist analyst Jimmy Nguyen got on the phone with Laura within minutes and explained that he suspected she was being targeted by scammers.
“We use biometrics technology as part of our fraud system and the first red flag for us was an alert telling us her screen was either being shared with someone or accessed remotely,” Nguygen said.
“The criminals had convinced Laura to download software, which allowed them to access her device remotely.
“They told her she needed the application so that they could walk her through how to make a payment to secure her account. But, once they were in her device, they were spying on her activity.”
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Moment the ‘penny dropped’
Nguygen said the scammers had convinced Laura not to share information about the transactions and her story kept changing while they were on the phone.
“I told Laura NAB would never call her and ask her to do anything that could compromise her security, like sharing a one-time PIN, transferring money to another account, giving us remote access to your devices or providing personal information,” he said.
Nguygen said NAB put a temporary block on Laura’s account to ensure the scammers couldn’t steal the cash in her account.
“There was a risk that the criminals could access Laura’s account and transfer her life savings of $120,000 to their account,” he said.
Nguygen said it was only a week later when Laura had time to process the situation that the “penny dropped” and she realised she was being scammed.
$134 million lost to scams
Aussies have lost more than $134 million to scams this year, according to Scamwatch data, with more than $4.7 million lost to remote access scams.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it had seen a spike in remote access scam losses, with reported losses skyrocketing 52 per cent in the first quarter of 2024.
“We are very concerned scammers are draining entire bank accounts, with average losses to remote access scams now in the tens of thousands,” ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said.
“Financial criminals use sophisticated emails, web-based pop-up messages and phone calls to impersonate well-known companies such as Microsoft to deceive people into thinking there is a problem with their account, computer or phone that needs fixing.”
Scammers often contact people out of the blue and can sound professional over the phone. They may ask you to download screen-sharing software, such as AnyDesk, Zoho or Teamviewer, which allows them to gain access to your bank accounts.
Aussies told to ‘be vigilant’
NAB group investigations executive Chris Sheehan said scammers were 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 details or make a payment themselves. That’s why it’s so important to be vigilant,” he said.
NAB said scam prevention measures, such as its biometric technology and the ability to see and hold payments in real-time and send alerts, had reduced customer losses by 17 per cent between October 2023 and March 2024.
The Australia Securities and Investment Commission released a report on the 15 banks outside of the Big Four. It found bank customers were bearing the brunt of scam losses, footing the bill for 96 per cent of losses over 2022 and 2023. This was consistent with previous findings for the major banks.
* Name changed for privacy reasons
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