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A small business owner who was saving money for a rainy day had his $10,000 stolen in a clever phone hacking scam.
Townsville man Andrew Ryder’s bank account and digital identity were destroyed 24 hours after a scammer attacked his phone on March 19.
Ryder, who is a retired veteran and runs a boat and jet ski licensing business, was the victim of a phone porting and SIM swapping scam.
Phone porting is a legitimate practice used to transfer a person’s phone number from one telecommunications company to another.
However, with enough information, a criminal can create an account with a telecommunications company in a person’s name and transfer their number.
Townsville man Andrew Ryder had $10,000 stolen from his bank account in clever phone scam
Ryder was the victim of a SIM swapping and phone porting scam, in which the scammer was able to transfer his mobile number to a new SIM card and impersonate him when calling his telecommunications company and bank.
A SIM swap scam occurs when the scammer contacts the victim’s telecommunications provider and asks to activate a new SIM card with their number.
Ryder realized something was wrong when he received a text message from Optus informing him that his request to transfer his phone number to a new SIM card was being processed.
He immediately called Optus but was reluctant to provide information over the phone because he wasn’t sure if he was speaking to the scammer or his provider.
Mr Ryder’s phone lost service, indicating his phone number was transferred to another SIM card, and almost immediately $10,000 was withdrawn from his bank account.
“I contacted my banks and asked them to close my account, they looked into it and said it looked like they had withdrawn $10,000,” Mr Ryder said. ABC.
Ryder discovered that the scammer had called his bank impersonating him and used his phone number to access security codes sent via text message.
He added that the bank also asked what Mr Ryder did while serving in the military, but that did not stop the scammer.
‘That’s easily found online. “You just have to Google my name and that information comes up, so it should have been an alarm for them, but it wasn’t,” Mr Ryder said.
Ryder explained that the criminal opened a line of credit in his name and also blocked his access to his email, Google and Facebook accounts.
He added that his digital identity has been “completely destroyed” and that he was not sure what other personal information the scammer might have had before hacking his phone.
‘I’ve had to re-evaluate my entire concept of what information I keep online. “I’m just trying to be safe so I can go to bed at night and not think I’m going to wake up with no money in my account,” Mr Ryder said.
Ryder, who is a veteran and runs a boat and jet ski licensing business, said he has had to reevaluate how much information he keeps online.
The bank, whose name Ryder did not mention because he wanted to protect his personal information, refunded him the $10,000 stolen by the scammer.
It comes after the Australian Communications and Media Authority instituted rules in mid-2020 requiring telcos to use multi-factor identification authentication.
The telecommunications authority said data from government sources found that mobile device porting scams decreased by 95 percent as a result of the rules introduced.
Last year, Australians reported 19,895 cases of identity theft scams, costing victims more than $8.59 million, according to the ACCC’s Scamwatch.
More than $826,000 was lost through phone scams, representing more than 12,200 reported cases.