Ben Fordham is urging Australians to check their travel money cards after falling victim to an “embarrassing” scam involving Onlyfans.
The 2GB host visited his local Commonwealth Bank branch to close accounts linked to his and his wife’s travel cards.
Fordham told the bank employee that he would no longer use the travel cards and wanted to transfer the remaining funds to his regular bank account.
However, when the Commonwealth Bank employee opened the account on his computer, Fordham immediately noticed that ‘OnlyFans’ was listed in the transaction history, a platform where users pay subscription fees to access adult content.
“I had this embarrassing conversation with the gentleman behind the counter… he pretended not to see it,” Fordham said.
“It was an awkward moment where I said, ‘Look, I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I swear I haven’t spent any money on Onlyfans.'”
The bank employee told Fordham that he had been attacked by a scammer.
The transaction history showed that $50 USD had been transferred to ‘OnlyFans.com’ and then returned to the account minutes later.
Ben Fordham told listeners he had an embarrassing conversation with a Commonwealth Bank employee after seeing ‘OnlyFans’ in his travel card account transaction list.
The Commonwealth Bank employee explained that Fordham was the target of fraud, and the bank recognized the illegal transaction and reversed it within minutes.
Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn described the ‘Onlyfans.com’ transactions as run-of-the-mill fraud.
“Hopefully it wasn’t too uncomfortable or embarrassing for you,” Mr Comyn told Fordham.
‘In this case, you, as the account holder, were not involved in that actual transaction as it was carried out by another third party. That’s an easier problem to address because you had nothing to do with it.
“You are covered by our fraud guarantee, which is our ability to reverse and return all of your funds to you.”
Fordham thanked the Commonwealth Bank for its swift action in acknowledging the fraud and reversing the charges.
He then urged his listeners to be vigilant and check their travel cards regularly, as they are often left unchecked once a person returns from their travels.
Comyn agreed, saying it was a target account for scammers because it wasn’t checked frequently.
“Unfortunately, we all need to be very alert to all types of fraud and scams.”
Comyn added that the Commonwealth Bank was running around 800 seminars over the next 12 months to educate its customers on what to look out for when it comes to fraud and scams.
So far this year, Australians have lost a whopping more than $208.2 million to scams, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s ScamWatch.
