A small business founder who was scammed out of $56,000 has hit out at ANZ Bank for telling him he should have used a security measure he had no idea was available to him.
Roland Sharman, who founded Sail Shade World 18 years ago and is still the company’s director, discovered he had lost more than AU$56,000 in 21 fraudulent credit card transactions in July.
Mr Sharman told Daily Mail Australia that the goods were sent to Jordan in the Middle East, only to discover that the details of the card used in the transaction had been stolen, so the money was taken and the goods disappeared.
He had minimal problems with bad debts as his business expanded to more than 50 countries and moved the company to Vienna, Austria, to be closer to his family.
Mr Sharman said ANZ raised its transaction fees from 1.8 per cent to 3 per cent for added security once it started accepting so many international orders.
He says the bank failed to inform him about a crucial cybersecurity measure, called 3DSecure, that would have protected him from fraudsters.
ANZ is now refusing to help Mr Sharman, claiming that he is technically to blame because he exposed himself to fraud by not using 3DSecure.
A small business founder who was scammed out of $56,000 has hit out at ANZ Bank for telling him he should have used a security measure he had no idea was available to him (file image)
Businessman Roland Sharman (pictured) has taken aim at ANZ after being scammed out of more than AU$56,000 in 21 fraudulent credit card transactions processed by the bank in July.
The 80-year-old man said he felt “sick” when he saw the transactions being cancelled because they were fraudulent.
“We had already processed 21 transactions and we were like, ‘Oh my God, what do we do? ’” he said.
“It’s a very depressing feeling.”
Mr Sharman said ANZ’s response to the scammers was to shift the blame back onto the businessman.
A bank representative told her it was not their “responsibility to look after her safety,” Sharman said.
“I’m sorry, I think it is, I really think it is,” he added.
The cost of adding 3DSecure to your processing fee is five cents per transaction, which Mr. Sharman said he would have gladly paid had he known about it.
“This was totally avoidable, I mean they raised our rate and said it was because of the complexity of cybersecurity for doing business abroad… What the fuck for?” he asked.
Mr Sharman estimated that the tariff increases have cost his company hundreds of thousands of dollars over its lifetime, but that when it mattered most, there was no protection in place.
Mr Sharman said the bank had evaded all responsibility for the transactions because it had failed to put in place adequate cyber security, making it liable for the loss of money.
After mutual communication with ANZ representatives to resolve the issue was unsuccessful, Mr Sharman lodged an official complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) on 16 September.
He said his lawyer believed the banks had “overstepped the boundaries” by profiting from such online transactions but then refusing to take financial responsibility when their payment systems allowed scams to occur.
“It’s quite possible that with the proliferation of cybercrime, we’re very close to having the courts impose that duty of care on banks,” Sharman said.
Since then he has launched a GoFundMe to help recover some of the funds he had lost in the scam, but also to start a movement to force banks to accept responsibility for cybercrimes on their systems and for courts to provide more protection to 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.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted ANZ for comment.
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