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The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has warned consumers of a new fraud after a scammer impersonated a Tasmanian man to steal over $40,000 in savings from his account.
The Tasmanian electrical engineer Syed Rizvi almost crashed his car after receiving a notification from his bank informing him that his transfer limit had been upped to $50,000, even if he had not requested it.
On December 22 last year, as he pulled his car off the highway and entered his Commonwealth Bank account, Mr Rizvi found that $30,000 had been transferred.
The electrical engineer “panicked” and called the bank immediately, but while he was on hold, he noticed another $9,860 had been deducted from his account.
The nearly $40,000 was placed into a CoinSpot account, but two-factor authentication did not take effect because he had already paid to the cryptocurrency exchange.
“I planned to go on a holiday during the new year, but I couldn’t go as I was left with no money,” he said in an interview.
The 26-year-old claimed that after immediately reporting the incident to the police, he waited an hour and a half before interacting with a CBA customer service agent because his account had already been frozen.
The CBA’s fraud squad informed Mr. Rizvi that someone had contacted and impersonated him, providing personal information and raising his transfer limit from $1,000 to a mind-blowing $50,000.
“I was very angry when I found this out. I was very surprised – the bank should have some sort of software to distinguish the voice,” he said.
CBA informed Mr Rizvi that the fraud probe could take 45 to 90 days.
If you think you may have been a victim of fraud, contact your bank as soon as possible to report the incident and get advice on how to protect yourself.
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