A university student has been refunded $12,000 after he was scammed out of his savings when he became the victim of an alarmingly simple scam.
Matthew Sweeney, 22, a criminology and criminal justice student at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, had saved money for a student exchange trip to the United States, but lost it all in just 10 minutes.
Last Wednesday he was serving customers at a supplement store in Braeside, in Melbourne’s southeast, when he received an unusual pop-up alert on his iPhone.
The pop-up was a message purportedly from ANZ Plus, telling it that an unauthorized payment of $1,900 had been made and that it needed to click on a link to stop the payment.
Matthew said he panicked and clicked on the link that took him to a “copy” of the ANZ website, before his account was emptied.
After Daily Mail Australia brought attention to the scam, ANZ refunded the money and the funds arrived in Matthew’s account on Tuesday morning.
It’s a rare positive outcome for a financial scam victim, many of whom are simply told “you’re on your own” when they fall victim to deception.
Before receiving the refund, his family had set up a GoFundMe to help him, but these kind-hearted donors will now get their money back.
‘It’s a great relief. “I couldn’t thank those who donated enough,” she said.
Sweeney previously said the only difference between the fake ANZ website he clicked on and the real site was that its URL appeared as “anz.com” instead of “anz.com.au”.
Matthew Sweeney, 22, lost $12,000 of his hard-earned savings after falling victim to an elaborate scam.
After clicking on the fraudulent link, Matthew was asked to enter his phone number, which was sent a one-time password.
Matthew said he then tried to access his ANZ Plus account on his phone but was locked out.
He immediately called the bank and was soon given access to get back into his account, but within 10 minutes the scammer on the other end had stolen the $12,000 of savings he had earned in preparation for his four months abroad.
“I get scam messages all the time and it’s very obvious when it’s a scam, but this one was very well done,” he said.
“I’m 22 years old, relatively tech-savvy, but there’s a new wave of scams emerging, and it wasn’t even a scam, it was straight-up fraud.”
“The fact is that I have no money now and I’m leaving in two months.”
Matthew completed a form with the ANZ cybersecurity team and was given another report to complete so he could refer the matter to the police.
Sweeney said he received this pop-up alert from what appeared to be ANZ Plus informing him of an unauthorized transaction.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this. It is rare that in ten minutes (the scammer) can break into a supposedly high-security account,’ she stated.
“I’ve worked enough in cybersecurity in college to know that the money has probably already passed through several accounts.”
To make matters worse, this year he had taken the first semester off from college to work as much as possible and save for his trip.
Matthew added that because he was serving customers at the time, he couldn’t properly focus on what the pop-up was asking him to do.
“If anyone gets a pop-up like that, just throw it away and take your time,” he said.
He added that he may have had to enter his bank PIN number, but he couldn’t remember exactly what he sent during the panic.
He also later received an email notification that a new device had been registered in his bank account that was a different iPhone than the one he had used.
Mr Sweeney was working at a supplement store at the time and was serving customers when the message arrived.
The initial loss of his hard-earned money also took a toll on the college student mentally.
“It was very hard, I was working and I had to close the store early and go home,” he said.
The website hosting the ANZ Plus impersonator was taken down as soon as the bank identified it.
An ANZ spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that the techniques used by scammers were constantly evolving.
“ANZ is focused on keeping customers safe as new frauds and scams emerge and criminals change the way they operate,” they said.
‘Over the last 18 months, Australia has seen an increase in phishing scams, where scammers call or message people claiming to be from various organizations and companies.
‘Scammers trying to impersonate banks will try to cause you to panic, so you must provide your banking details yourself or transfer funds.
‘If you receive an unusual or alarming message; pause, stop and think.
‘A bank will never ask you to transfer money to another account. Do not provide sensitive personal information such as full card number, access PIN, SMS verification codes or one-time passwords to anyone, including bank staff.
“If you believe you have been a victim of a scam or have been contacted by a scammer, you should contact your bank immediately.”