We recently acted for a lady who sold her house in order to move into a retirement home.  On the day of settlement, she received a telephone call from a male person who said that he was from Telstra Security and he asked her if she was expecting to receive a large payment of money into her account.

Because this was the day of settlement, my client said that she was, and the caller immediately said that he had noticed some irregularities and asked her to confirm her account details.  Because she had been dealing with Telstra to transfer her telephone number in anticipation of the completion of the sale of the home and relocation to the retirement village, our client felt that it was entirely natural for somebody from Telstra to be contacting her.  She said they were so nice and so charming that she did not give the matter a moment’s thought.

It was only later in the day that she mentioned it to her daughter that her daughter telephoned our client’s bank to warn them of a possible fraud.  She was told by bank staff that there had been a withdrawal of $10,000 which was the daily limit for our client.

The good news is that the bank reimbursed the funds taken.

It is difficult to know how this fraudster knew to contact our client.  It may be that there is a contact in the Telstra organisation, or the fraudster may have been watching the advertisements for the sale of property.  However it happened, the cyber-criminal knew, or at least strongly suspected, that our client was completing the sale of her home and would-be receiving funds into her account.

The important lesson is “Do not give your bank account details to anyone and always assume that the person who is asking for that information is endeavouring to defraud you”.

If you have any queries, please give us a call on 9543 1444.  Our initial consultation is free.