A racing driver was swindled out of $50,000 in a cruel and elaborate scam.
Veronica McCann, 40, from Perth, lost her money when scammers hacked into her Telstra account posing as a victim of domestic violence.
Taking advantage of her presence at Telstra, the scammers were able to change all her contact details to their own, completely disconnecting her from all her banking and communication accounts.
Ms McCann said her first inkling that something was wrong was when she left a meeting and had no reception on her phone.
The only clue she had was an email from Telstra warning her that the phone number associated with her account had changed.
“I literally thought it was a problem with the cell phone. I didn’t realise there was something more sinister going on,” McCann said. Nine news Thursday.
She later learned that the scammers had cut her off and changed her phone number to theirs using a little-known loophole.
They posed as a victim of domestic violence who had run away without a phone.
Veronica McCann (pictured) lost $50,000 from her ANZ bank account after scammers hacked her Telstra account
Fortunately, Ms McCann was able to go to a Telstra store and get her number and account back, but once her phone was reconnected, the bad news continued.
His screen was immediately filled with notifications from MyGov, PayPal and, worst of all, ANZ.
The scammers had used private details they found on Ms McCann’s Telstra account to empty her account within two hours.
“My heart drops, I feel bad the rest of the day, I feel physically bad,” she said.
‘I called my husband and said, “You need to call ANZ and tell them to close our accounts because we’ve been hacked” and I’ve had a horrible feeling ever since.’
Ms McCann is still awaiting details of how criminals were able to log in and change details on several of her accounts without ANZ or Telstra raising the alarm.
“That should have been a warning sign,” he said.
The scammers who targeted McCann (pictured) posed as a domestic violence victim who lost her phone in order to hack into her account.
McCann’s only clue that she had been hacked was an email from Telstra (pictured) warning her that her contact information had changed.
ANZ agreed to reimburse McCann for the stolen money, but only after she first shared the story of her loss on Perth radio station 6PR on Thursday.
“Nowadays you never know if it’s a scam,” he told the program.
The bank told Nine News the scam was “appalling” and assured its customers it is “continually reviewing and adjusting its capabilities” as new scams emerge.
Telstra said the fraudster was able to answer the phone company’s security questions because it appeared he or she had committed identity theft “prior to any interaction with Telstra.”
Australians made more than 601,000 scam reports to authorities last year, an 18.5 per cent increase on 2022, according to the ACCC.