How NAB bank teller refused to let a couple withdraw $40,000 from their account – and saved them from a sinister scam plot: ‘Alarm bells’

A bank employee saved a couple $40,000 after noticing they were in the middle of a scam.

Erin Bugg, a customer advisor at the Nation Australia Bank branch in Rosny, Hobart, was asked by the man and woman to unfreeze their account so they could send money to an ‘online investment company’.

The couple tried to have the first of two installments – $40,000 – sent to the fake company in Perth.

The scammers promised a 12 percent return on their time deposit and a guaranteed payout if the company went bust, putting Ms Bugg on high alert.

“If there were a bingo card with warning signs, ‘online investment opportunity’ would be at the top of the list,” Ms Bugg revealed in a statement from the bank.

‘Alarm bells immediately went off for me. It sounded like an investment scam and I was afraid this couple would lose their life savings.”

The customers were confident that they were not being scammed and became desperate to have their money transferred to the company.

As Ms. Bugg looked into the company and discovered that their website seemed legitimate and several news articles were written about them, the rates they were offering were “too good to be true.”

“No one likes to be lied to, especially when they feel like they’ve done the right things,” Bugg says.

“They had done their own research and even spoke to the company by telephone.”

The bank employee said another alarm bell rang when the woman said a man from the company kept calling her and insisting she open the account to transfer the money.

After speaking with the bank’s fraud department, who agreed that the investment opportunity was an “elaborate scam,” the couple then called the company to try to get them to argue otherwise.

“I refused to talk to the ‘company’ but I could hear them saying to customers, ‘Oh, NAB always marks us as a scam’,” Ms Bugg said.

The fraud team urged the couple to speak to the bank responsible for the company’s account to confirm whether they were who they claimed to be.

Ms Bugg’s caution paid off when the bank confirmed that the account was not affiliated with the company and urged them not to transfer any money to them.

“It was such a relief to hear from the customer that they had avoided being ripped off,” she said.

‘I was put in a difficult position with all the pressure put on me, and I’m so glad I didn’t give up. I stuck to my guns and followed my gut so they didn’t lose their savings.”

The couple tried to send the money to a Perth investment firm and were convinced it wasn’t a scam, before Mrs Bugg and the NAB fraud team urged them not to (pictured, Launceston branch)

Without Ms Bugg’s intervention, the couple would have joined more than 3,500 Aussies who had fallen victim to investment fraud by 2023, according to ScamWatch.

Investment fraud was by far the most affective scam of the past year, costing Australians more than $276 million.

The ScamWatch website urged Australians to be weary of deals that “seem too good to be true”.

‘Scammers make you believe you are getting an incredible deal or offer. They pressure you to act quickly so you don’t miss anything,” the website said.

“Remember, deals that seem too good to be true usually are.”