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An Australian man lost $20,000 he had saved for a property deposit in a sneaky new scam after responding to a “random” real text message from his bank.
The first red flags were raised in January when the customer received a bizarre text message from a random Australian number with a signature ‘Ubank’.
“A suspected fraudulent transaction of $0.00 has been detected… Please reply CANCEL if you would like us to cancel your card and reissue a new card to your address. »
The Melbourne man called his bank and was assured the text was legitimate, although the transaction may have been initiated by scammers as part of the scheme.
When someone claiming to be from Ubank called three weeks later, the victim trusted them enough to enter their PIN to confirm their identity in response to a request sent to them via text message.
A customer was scammed three weeks after receiving this SMS confirmed as legitimate by his bank
This professional-looking “employee” with an Australian accent knew the last four digits of the customer’s credit card as well as their most recent banking transactions.
The PIN provided was actually his security code – and all the scammer needed to access his bank accounts.
The scammer then kept the man on the phone for half an hour to extract information from him in a bid to prevent him from checking his bank accounts and realizing the money was missing.
“A few minutes on the phone and suddenly $20,000 is gone, it’s hard to accept,” the customer’s sister said. news.com.au.
“While he was on the phone with the scammers, he saw the transaction take place, two lots of $10,000.”
The man immediately hung up and called Ubank, but was told an investigation would take 45 days.
He later discovered that Ubank did not contact the receiving financial institution for three days after reporting the scam.
His sister was shocked when she learned how “clever” the scammers had been and how easily her brother had been fooled.
Man had $20,000 taken from his savings account in minutes (stock image)
“Of the two of us, he’s the most diligent,” she said.
“That’s a lot of money to get back, especially when you’re trying to save for a house in Melbourne.”
Ubank declined to comment on this specific case, citing privacy reasons, but confirmed that the original text message sent to the customer was legitimate.
The company urged its customers to never click on a link contained in a text claiming to be from Ubank.
“Additionally, we will never text or call customers asking them to provide personal information, one-time passcodes or PIN numbers,” a spokesperson said.
“If customers receive a suspicious call from Ubank, hang up. So call us immediately.
The customer declined an offer of a $1,000 goodwill gesture from Ubank and filed a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
Ubank urged its customers never to click on links contained in texts claiming to come from the bank.