A Gold Coast couple scammed out of more than $250,000 during a home purchase have warned Australians not to make the same mistake they did.
Sarah and Laine Robinson, aged 44 and 39 respectively, had their lives turned upside down after transferring 15 years of savings into a fraudulent account.
Their rental was packed and the couple and their three children were ready to move into their dream rural home in Mount Nathan before settling down in September.
The couple had even visited the property, and Sarah took a heartbreaking photo posing with the “sold” sign with two of her young children.
They now live in a rental in Benowa after almost becoming homeless, and say they can’t afford to stay on the Gold Coast.
“We’ve had three months of basically torture,” Ms Robinson told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I feel that the carrier is the one that has disappointed us the most. They didn’t emphasize the importance of checking everything again, how do I clarify that it’s them and no one else?
“They didn’t emphasize the importance of surveillance.”
The Robinson family had even visited their dream property, and Sarah took a heartbreaking photo posing with the “sold” sign with two of her young children.
The family’s rent was packed and the couple and their three children (pictured) were ready to move into their dream home before reaching an agreement in September.
Communication with the carrier was unnecessarily complicated, he said.
The email chain grew to include five people after an employee fell ill and another staff member took over, in addition to management staff and the business owner.
As the settlement approached, the company remained silent, but the Robinsons continued to contact the scammers who sent account details about where to send the money.
The fraudulent email matched their previous communication with the carrier almost perfectly and had all the details correct, just missing a “.au” at the end.
But by the time the couple noticed the small discrepancy, it was too late.
They didn’t hear from the real transferor until the day before the deal, when the company contacted them to tell them they had received the first payment of $60,000, but not the second payment of $252,000.
“I was talking to the scammers for a week and a half without knowing it,” Mrs Robinson said.
‘I asked them: “Why wasn’t there more communication?” They didn’t chase me until the day before the settlement, at three in the afternoon.’
The Robinson family was left almost homeless after losing 15 years of savings to scammers.
Victoria Police are investigating and have told the couple the money went to a 20-year-old university student in Melbourne who acted as a “mule” and opened an account for the scammers.
It is possible that the student was unaware of the scam.
The couple have been told that all the money is still in Australia, but dispersed among up to seven people, all of whom are known to police.
They said police had been “helpful” but there was a frustrating delay when the case was transferred from Queensland to Victoria Police.
They are also unhappy with their bank, ANZ, which told them there was “no fault on their part”.
Robinson said the bank received no red flags or warnings when Sarah went to her local branch to make the transaction.
It wasn’t until seven days later that they received a call from the bank at 9:00 pm asking to confirm the details of the transaction, but due to the late time of the call and the foreign voice at the end of the line, they were concerned about the call. In itself it was a scam.
“Look at all the profits ANZ has made this year and tell us why it can’t get our money back,” Ms Robinson said.
The couple are unhappy with their bank, ANZ, which told them there was “no fault on their part” after they transferred the money to a fraudulent account.
She shared a simple warning for other Australians looking to buy a home.
“You have to be aware of what you are signing in a contract, because if you choose to use the electronic format, you are opening yourself up to many possibilities for scams,” he said.
“There are all these systems that are letting us down as consumers.”
Robinson, a nurse, and her husband, who has his own construction business, are now weighing their next step as they come to terms with having to work well past retirement age.
‘We don’t know what to do. We cannot afford to live off the Cost of Gold if we do not have this money. “The median home price here is over $1 million,” Ms. Robinson said.
An ANZ spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: “We always try to recover funds that customers have lost due to scams or fraud.”
‘However, the ability to recover funds depends on a number of factors, including how quickly we are informed, whether they are transferred to another financial institution, and the speed with which fraudsters transfer the funds again.
‘In many cases, cybercriminals transfer funds within minutes or use them to purchase cryptocurrencies.
“ANZ has a range of measures in place to help detect and protect our customers against fraud and scams and continually reviews and adjusts our capabilities as new frauds and scams emerge and criminals change the way they operate.”