A scam victim has shed light on the devastating new way scammers are targeting vulnerable Australians, after they lost their entire life savings in the space of a 10-minute phone call with someone purporting to be from their bank.
The victim – who has asked not to be named – said they had banked with HSBC for more than 20 years before receiving a text that matched real messages they had received from the bank over the years before.
After receiving a message notifying them of a new mobile login from Perth, the victim was sent a number to call.
“I believed the message was genuine, and I thought I was doing the right thing to protect my money,” the victim explained, saying they phoned out of fear someone was trying to get into their account.
After phoning the number, the victim spoke with a man over the phone for about 10 minutes – where he asked the victim if anyone else had access to their banking.
What the victim didn’t realise was that they weren’t on the phone to HSBC at all – instead they were phoning a scammer who had pulled off an elaborate impersonation to dupe them.
“During the call, I received another message saying $46,700 had been debited from my account,” the victim explained.
“That was basically all my savings. It was money I had been building up to cover expenses for a personal situation.
“When I realised what had happened, I was trembling.
“I was in shock. I felt ashamed and I did not know what to do first.”
The victim phoned the bank and reported everything, even filing a police report.
They described what followed as “torture” while waiting for updates.
“I kept calling for updates, but I was told to wait, told to go to a branch, told my details did not match, and told the investigation was still ongoing,” the victim explained.
“Months and months went by and I still had no real answers about where my money had gone or whether I would get any of it back.”
The victim said the impact was “huge” on her family – leading to borrowing $20,00 from a friend and sister.
“I even had to ask my daughter to dip into her savings. She was only 18 at the time and had been saving money from birthdays and her casual job, but after the scam, she had to help me with groceries and other expenses,” the victim explained.
“I picked up extra Saturday shifts at work, and my daughter, who was studying, also had to pick up extra shifts because we needed the money to get by.
“It was emotionally devastating. I could not sleep or eat properly.
The heartbreaking story comes amid new data showing just how much scammers are able to fleece from ordinary Australians.
Between January and May this year, the National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) received 4278 Scamwatch reports of bank impersonation scams, with losses of $2,481,562.
This was primarily through phone calls – which topped the list with 1553 reports and a whopping total loss of $1.9m.
It was followed by email ($211,739), text ($175,496), in-person scams ($120,000), online scams ($23,605) and mail ($7250).
The trend has led the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to issue a major warning over the growing sophistication of scams and the dubious claims they use.
“Scammers can use technology to change the way their number appears when they phone or text you – it lets them copy a real bank phone number,” the watchdog said.
“This is called spoofing. Scammers make use of spoofing to deceive victims into assuming that the call or text is legitimate, even though it isn’t.
“Then they rely on creating pressure, confusion or fear so you act quickly without checking.”
ASIC said it is also concerned about reports scammers are using ways to exploit AI tools – like generative AI chatbots, automated AI search summaries and AI agents – to increase the volume and sophistication of bank impersonation scams.
“We’re seeing scammers impersonate banks to manipulate Australians into handing over their money or personal details,” ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland said
“Bank impersonation scams can be financially and emotionally devastating for victims, who can see their whole life savings lost.”