A university student lost $12,000 he’d saved up for a trip to America on student exchange within just ten minutes after becoming the victim of an alarmingly simple scam.
Matthew Sweeney, 22, a criminology and criminal justice student at Melbourne‘s Swinburne University of Technology, was working at a supplement store in Braeside on Wednesday evening when he suddenly saw an unusual pop-up alert flash on his phone.
The pop-up was a message telling him an unauthorised payment of $1,900 had been taken from his ANZ Plus account and he needed to act now to stop it from going through.
He said the pop-up appeared to be legitimately coming from the bank and as he clicked into it, he was taken to a ‘carbon copy’ of the ANZ website – the only difference being that rather than ‘anz.com.au’, it was ‘anz.com’.
Matthew Sweeney, 22, lost $12,000 from his hard-earned savings after falling victim to an elaborate scam
The uni student was then asked to enter in his phone number where a one-time password was sent.
Mr Sweeney said he then tried to access his ANZ Plus account from his phone but was locked out.
He immediately called the bank and was soon given access to go back into his account, but within 10 minutes the scammer on the other side had stolen all $12,000 of his savings he’d earned in preparation for his four months abroad.
‘I get scam messages all the time and it’s so obvious when it is a scam but this one was so well done,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I’m 22, I’m relatively tech savvy but there’s a new wave of scamming coming through, and it wasn’t even a scam, it was straight up fraud.
‘The fact (is) that I’ve now got no money and I leave in two months.’
Mr Sweeney filled out a form with ANZ’s cyber security team and was handed another report to fill out so the matter could be referred to police.
He said he has studied cyber security in his university course and isn’t confident he’ll be getting the money back.
Mr Sweeney said he received a pop-up alert from what appeared to be ANZ Plus telling him of an unauthorised transaction
‘I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s weird that in ten minutes (the scammer) can get into a supposedly high security account,’ he said.
‘I’ve done enough cyber security at uni to know the money has probably gone through a number of accounts by now.’
Making matters worse, the 22-year-old had taken the first semester off university this year in order to work as much as possible to save up for his trip.
His family have since launched a GoFundMe to help raise some money for his upcoming exchange.
Mr Sweeney added that because he was serving customers at the time, he wasn’t able to properly focus on what the pop-up was asking him to do.
‘If anyone gets a pop up like that, just dismiss it and take your time,’ he said.
He added it was possible he had to put in his banking pin number but couldn’t remember exactly what he submitted during his panic.
He also later received an email notification that a new device had been registered on his bank account that was from an iPhone different to the one he used.
Mr Sweeney said ANZ are doing everything they can to try and retrieve the funds, but added he was incorrectly told by a customer service agent the fraud team didn’t operate past 5pm.
Mr Sweeney was working at a supplement store at the time and was serving customers when the message came through
He instead waited until the following day to speak to them where he learnt they were available 24/7.
The loss of his hard-earned money has also taken a mental toll on the uni student.
‘It was really rough, I was working and I had to close the store early and go home,’ he said.
He is now planning to call the national identity and cyber support service IDCARE.
The service connects people to expert Identity and Cyber Security Case Managers who provide the best advice on how to respond to data breaches, scams, identity theft, and cyber security concerns.
The website hosting the ANZ Plus impersonator was removed as soon as the bank identified it.
An ANZ spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the techniques used by scammers were constantly evolving.
‘ANZ is focused on keeping customers safe as new fraud and scams emerge and criminals change how they operate,’ they said.
‘Over the last 18 months Australia has seen an increase in impersonation scams, where scammers cold call or message individuals claiming to be from various organisations and businesses.
‘Scammers that try to impersonate banks will try to panic you, so you provide your banking details or transfer funds yourself.
‘If you receive an unusual or alarming message; pause, stop and think.
‘A bank will never ask you to move money to another account. Do not provide sensitive personal information such as full card number, Access PIN, SMS verification codes or one-time-passcodes to anyone, including bank staff.
‘If you believe you may have been a victim of a scam or contacted by a scammer you should contact your bank immediately.’