A devastated family is suing their bank after it flagged a $50,000 wire transfer as a scam, yet allowed a total of $200,000 to be sent to hackers.
The heartbroken Sydney couple, who wish to remain anonymous, said they were barely able to afford basic groceries for their two children on top of their mortgage payments after losing $200,000 to a “spoofing” scam.
The father told News.com.au his wife received a disturbing message in the same text chain as legitimate messages from the Suncorp bank in December last year.
The message warned that a new payment ID had been set up to transfer $895 to a person the couple did not recognize.
They would later learn that the message was a fake, sent by a scammer who stole their savings over the course of five days.
Attached to the bogus message they received was a phone number claiming to be Suncorp’s fraud department.
A heartbroken family in Sydney said they lost $200,000 after a scammer sent them a “spoofed” text message in the same chain as previous messages with their bank, Suncorp (pictured, the fake security message the couple received from the scammer )
The pair said they are considering suing their bank, Suncorp (above), after the lack of ‘responsibility’ for the scam left them in dire straits
When the mother called, she was asked a series of security questions – adding to the apparent authenticity of the scam – and was urged to transfer her savings to a new account because her current one had been hacked.
So she and her husband transferred all of their savings — about $200,000 — to the new account created by the fake Suncorp employee.
After five days of regular $50,000 deposits into the account, Suncorp froze the family’s actual accounts and warned them that they had been scammed.
The father said the bank had told the couple they were waiting for more information from the Commonwealth Bank, where the fraudster had opened the bogus ‘new’ account.
“Obviously it was a very sleepless weekend and when we spoke to the fraud department they said ‘you transferred the money so it’s not our responsibility, we won’t refund it and there’s little chance you’ll get any money back’, ‘ he said.
He claims that within four hours of telling the couple they had been scammed, the bank concluded it was not responsible for the lost money.
Since the $200,000 loss, the parents have been forced to consider selling their home to move back in with relatives as interest rates continue to rise across the country.
“Fortunately, my wages and my wife’s wages cover the cost of the mortgage payments, but it doesn’t cover everyday life like groceries, so we depend on family to help us run errands,” the father said.
“I spoke to the fraud department and said it’s taken an emotional toll, it’s still pretty raw and my wife is literally in bed in a fetal position and I have two young kids asking ‘why isn’t mom getting out of bed why is mom crying?’.’
Over five days, the couple deposited $50,000 into a fake new Suncorp account that was actually the scammer’s Comm Bank account (photo, texts from the scammer)
He claims he and his wife were ready to pay off their mortgage in full over the next 10 years, but the loss means they’ll be in debt for another 35 years – if they manage to keep their home.
However, a key piece of information about their scam investigation has turned the family’s despair to anger and has encouraged them to sue Suncorp and Comm Bank.
The father claims Commonwealth Bank flagged the couple’s first wire transfer of nearly $50,000 as unusual activity and warned Suncorp that it could be a scam.
The warning meant that the first transfer was frozen, but the family was not notified and their remaining $150,000 was deposited into the scammer’s account.
Commonwealth Bank recovered $42,796 of the couple’s total loss.
The pair have criticized the banks for not taking ‘responsibility’ and blamed them when warning systems were reportedly ignored.
The Sydney couple said they want to sue Suncorp and Commonwealth Bank (above) after learning the banks labeled the first $50,000 transfer as a scam but allowed others to proceed
“I want Suncorp to raise its hand and say, ‘we were wrong, we didn’t protect you as a customer.’ They are happy that we give them money for 28 years, but the moment something goes wrong, they quickly close their shop and pay nothing and do not help us,” said the father.
He said Suncorp has offered to cut their interest rate by 1.5 percent, freeze mortgage payments for six months, and $3,000 to cover medical expenses.
The couple have filed a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority and are considering filing a class action along with five other families who have been victims of scams.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Suncorp and Commonwealth Bank for comment.
