An Australian couple lost about $293,000 to scammers after entering a Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) branch to transfer money to buy a house.
The couple, Jimmy and Leanne, wanted to buy a house for Jimmy’s parents south of Sydney, but the cost of the home exceeded the purchase price by nearly half a million Australian dollars.
-->Jimmy, a mechanic, says in a new interview with A Current Affair that he trusted a conveyancer going by the name Kylie Drain to handle the property settlement.
He went to his local Commonwealth Bank to transfer the money into Drain’s account according to instructions he’d received via email.
Explains Jimmy,
“I trusted this bank. I trusted the people who worked here.”
The bank teller reportedly unwittingly facilitated a money transfer to a scammer posing as the conveyancer, with 25 years’ worth of the couple’s life savings disappearing in the process.
Both Jimmy and the conveyancing practice, Active Property Conveyancing, claim their emails weren’t hacked.
However, Jimmy tells A Current Affair he believes Active Property Conveyancing was the hacking target.
“It’s known that solicitors and conveyancers, or people that deal with lots of money, are the ones that get compromised, not some little Hotmail account or an Outlook account. So my argument is, if your system was compromised and they’ve stolen my information and sent me an email, how is that my fault?”
The conveyancing practice says Jimmy didn’t contact them before transferring the money as instructed in their email signature. The firm says its insurance won’t cover the loss.
Jimmy filed a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) about Commonwealth Bank, but the regulator reportedly ruled in favor of the bank because the couple signed a form confirming the details of the transaction were in order. The regulator also said the bank isn’t required to advise customers about their transactions.
