Gold Coast couple lose $250,000 deposit to spear phishing scam.

Sarah and Laine Robinson did everything right.

They spent years saving for a deposit, had a reputable conveyancer and even hired a buyers agent to help them negotiate after losing several properties they fell in love with.

They finally had a home to call their own in Mt Nathan on the Gold Coast.

They went to an ANZ bank branch to make two transfers from their home deposit, totaling more than $300,000.

The day before the settlement, their world came crashing down – the money was gone.

They unknowingly transferred almost all of their deposit into a scam account.

The scam was not realized until a day before the settlement

The Robinsons had no idea how it could have happened, with almost no red flags or signs that anything was wrong.

“We went to the bank and thought we had nothing to worry about going into the branch other than everything was fine and secure,” Mr Robinson said.

The loss was a traumatic shock, Ms Robinson said.

“From the moment it happened, I fell apart. I fell apart. I lost my parents and (the pain) was almost the same because you don’t expect it and it changes your life so quickly.”

The day before the settlement, Mr. Robinson called his wife to say that their carrier could not see the full deposit in the trust account.

The first payment of $60,000 had cleared, but the second deposit of $252,000 was not there.

“I was just blown away,” Ms Robinson said.

“I said to Laine, ‘I’ve been corresponding with the carrier for two weeks about the transfer. I followed their email and then they replied that I received funds. I have everything there, I’ll show you.” “

Once their carrier looked at the email Mrs. Robinson was referring to, everything fell into place.

The account details of where to send the money came from emails that appeared to be from their carrier.

All the details, from the amount of stamp duty to specific charges and fees, were correct.

What they missed was the email address – it was missing the “.au” at the end.

Spear phishing attacks are becoming more common

The Robinsons were likely the victims of what’s called a “phishing” attack – a personalized impersonation scam in which fraudsters gain access to emails or text messages and impersonate someone to trick victims into believing that they communicate with people they know and trust.

Philip Goldie is the managing director of Okta, a security software company, and told the ABC that after years of general mass phishing attacks, scammers were turning to high-value targets.

He said about 18 months ago most attacks were “very large phishing scams potentially targeting hundreds of thousands or even tens of millions of people”, such as text messages appearing to be from Australia Post or Linkt, which require an invoice to be paid.

These, Mr Goldie said, have been replaced by “very, very targeted scams where the impact can be incredibly high financially”.

“This type of scam requires a lot more time and effort on the part of the perpetrator, but it can be done at scale and the impact and type of financial loss or financial gain for the perpetrator can be huge.”

Funds sent to Victorian account

Queensland Police detectives initially began investigating how the Robinsons were defrauded, but the ABC understands the case was recently transferred to Victoria Police after it was discovered a Melbourne university student held the bank account into which the funds were transferred.

ANZ said it was able to recover $82,000 of the $252,000 lost, but could not comment further.

The Robinsons said they were furious the bank did not do more to warn them their funds may have been transferred to an incorrect account.

About a week after making the transfer, Ms Robinson received a late phone call from ANZ asking if the account details she had transferred the $252,000 deposit into were correct.

While on the phone, she opened the email again and confirmed the details.

Ms Robinson said there was no indication the woman on the other end of the line was worried about the transfer.

The bank, she said, called her a few weeks ago, apologizing for the way that phone call was handled and acknowledging that more should have been done to convey the seriousness of what was being asked.

A letter to Ms Robinson from ANZ, seen by the ABC, said even if the scam had been identified during the phone call, it would have been too late to recover the money.

Okta’s Mr Goldie said as scams became more common and sophisticated – particularly with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) – it was important that both banks and individuals did what they could to ensure that communicate with the right people.

The Robinson family said they wanted to tell their story to warn others.

“If someone told me that shipping scams are so rampant in Australia right now, you need to make sure of it… there are so many points where so many people could have helped me,” he said. said Mrs. Robinson.

How to protect yourself

In its latest annual report, the Australian Cyber ​​Security Center said artificial intelligence will “allow cybercriminals to undertake more labor-intensive activities, such as generating spear phishing content more efficiently and at greater scale”.

Mr Goldie said people could take simple steps to protect themselves from targeted attacks.

“If there was one thing I think everyone should think about doing, it’s making sure your account personal email is well protected,” he said.

“That means having a very complex and unique password to access your email and then enabling features like multi-factor authentication, a unique code that might come to your phone or an app that allows access to your email – your email. “

A second avenue of protection was to “be more cautious.”

“If you’re dealing with anything that involves any amount of money, especially large amounts of money, or you’re dealing with institutions that have access to significant information or financial aspects of your life, double-check, double-check triple, make sure you’re talking to someone legit.

“Make sure you understand how to vet the organization you’re dealing with.”