A university student has been reimbursed $12,000 after he was swindled out of his savings when he became the victim of an alarmingly simple scam.
Matthew Sweeney, 22, a criminology and criminal justice student at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology, had saved up the money for a student exchange trip to the US but lost it all in just 10 minutes.
He’d been serving customers at a supplement store in Braeside, in Melbourne’s south-east, last Wednesday when he received an unusual pop-up alert on his iPhone.
The pop-up was a message supposedly from ANZ Plus, telling him an unauthorised payment of $1,900 had been taken and he needed to click on a link to stop the payment.
Matthew said he panicked and clicked on the link which took him to a ‘carbon copy’ of ANZ’s website, before his account was drained.
After Daily Mail drew attention to the scam, ANZ reimbursed the money and the funds landed in Matthew’s account on Tuesday morning.
It’s a rare positive outcome for a financial scam victim, many of whom are simply told ‘you’re on your own’ when they fall victim to hoaxes.
Before being reimbursed, his family had set up a GoFundMe to help him out – but these kind-hearted donors will now get their money back.
‘It’s a huge relief. I couldn’t thank those who donated enough,’ he said.
Mr Sweeney earlier said the only difference between the fake ANZ website he clicked on and the real deal was that its URL appeared as ‘anz.com’ rather than ‘anz.com.au’.
After clicking the fraudulent link, Matthew was then asked to enter his phone number, to which a one-time password was sent.
Matthew 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 savings he had 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 said.
‘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.’
Matthew filled out a form with ANZ’s cybersecurity team and was handed another report to fill out so the matter could be referred to police.
‘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 cybersecurity at uni to know the money has probably gone through a number of accounts by now.’
Making matters worse, he had taken the first semester off university this year in order to work as much as possible to save up for his trip.
Matthew 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 had used.
The initial loss of his hard-earned money also took 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.
The website hosting the ANZ Plus impersonator was removed as soon as the bank identified it.
An ANZ spokesperson told Daily Mail 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 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.’