A small business is now on the brink of collapse after scammers ordered tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods using stolen credit cards.
Roland Sharman, 80, has operated Sail Shade World, a sail-shaped awning company that ships internationally, for 18 years but may now be forced to close the business.
Mr Sharman sent $36,000 worth of stock to a customer in the Middle East in July before realising the candles had been purchased using stolen credit cards.
In August, he noticed that several “chargebacks” had undermined payments from his ANZ trading account even though the candles had long since disappeared.
The original owners of the credit cards used to purchase the candles began disputing the fraudulent transactions that left Mr. Sharman with nothing.
ANZ is refusing to help Mr Sharman, arguing that he is technically guilty because he exposed himself to fraud by not using 3DSecure, a crucial cybersecurity measure that would have protected him from fraudsters.
Mr Sharman, who has no pension or retirement fund, is now worried about being left with nothing.
“I don’t know if we’re going to survive this,” Sharman said. He told news.com.au.
Roland Sharman, 80, lost $36,000 after scammers used stolen credit cards to buy stock in his small business
A Middle Eastern customer placed 21 orders for indoor shade sails with Mr Sharman in July, but by August the original owners of the credit cards had begun to recover their own lost money.
‘It’s changed things in terms of cash flow. We’re a small business. It’s totally stable and nice ATM, we don’t have to worry (usually) about anything.
“We didn’t think we needed to save money.”
Prior to this, Mr. Sharman had few problems with bad debts as his business expanded to more than 50 countries and he moved to Vienna, Austria, to be closer to his family.
Mr Sharman said ANZ’s response to the scammers was to shift the blame back onto the businessman.
ANZ had previously raised its transaction fees from 1.8 percent to 3 percent for added security once it started accepting so many international orders.
But the small businessman insists he had no idea 3DSecure was available to him or that he was expected to use it.
However, a bank representative told her it was not their “responsibility to look after her safety”, Sharman told Daily Mail Australia.
The cost of adding 3DSecure to its processing fee would have been five cents per transaction, which Mr Sharman said he would have gladly paid had he known about it.
“This was completely avoidable,” he said. “They raised the fee and said it was because of the complexity of cybersecurity for overseas business. For what?”
Mr. Sharman estimated that the tariff increases cost his company hundreds of thousands of dollars over its lifetime, but there was no protection available when he needed it.
Following unsuccessful communication with ANZ representatives to resolve the issue, Mr Sharman lodged an official complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) on 16 August.
Mr Sharman’s bank, ANZ, is refusing to help him recover the lost funds because it was not using a crucial cybersecurity feature that the 80-year-old did not even know existed.
Mr. Sharman has since launched a GoFundMe to help recover some of the funds he had lost in the scam.
He also hopes to start a movement to force banks to accept responsibility for cybercrime on their systems and for courts to provide more protection for customers.
“Legislation should be put in place to prevent this from happening,” Sharman said.
‘As a bank, you have a fiduciary responsibility; you shouldn’t allow your customers to be exposed when there’s a way around it.’
An ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that 3D Secure “should be enabled by the merchant’s gateway provider”.
“3D Secure is a security protocol used by payment gateways to authenticate online transactions using credit and debit cards,” the spokesperson said.
‘In this case, ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions is not the gateway provider.
‘However, ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions provides all customers with information about 3D Secure through operational guides, our website and proactive communications, and encourages them to confirm that 3D Secure is available on their gateway if they use a third-party provider.’
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