ANZ customer loses $460,000 to Thai scammers before bank reimburses Hobart father

An elderly man was scammed out of $460,000 and shortly afterwards was diagnosed with dementia in a cruel blow.

Hobart man Alex Shaw, 78, was targeted by scammers from Thailand who emptied his ANZ bank account.

Mr Shaw’s memory had deteriorated in recent years and shortly after losing all his money he was diagnosed with dementia.

The 78-year-old risked never seeing his savings again until his son Victor got involved and filed a formal complaint with the bank.

He wondered whether the bank had done enough by finding that his father was vulnerable and that he had fallen victim to smaller scams in the past.

ANZ admitted it ‘could have done more to support Mr Shaw’ and repaid the elderly father the full $460,174.14 in a stunning turn of events.

Victor, rector of St George’s Anglican Church, said he initially had no idea his father had lost the money until a chance visit to ANZ.

He had accompanied his father to the local branch when an employee took him aside and said to him, “Your father has been the victim of a scam.”

“I found out he had lost almost most of his savings,” Victor said ABC.

Victor knew that the chances of getting the money back were slim as the odds were against him.

Australians lost over half a billion dollars to scammers in 2021-2022, but the Big Four Banks only reimbursed their customers $21 million.

Mr Shaw’s poor memory only complicated his son’s campaign to get the money back, but there was one glimmer of hope.

Mr Shaw was a habitual note-taker and had written down dates, names and details of conversations whenever he was contacted by a stranger.

With the help of those banknotes, Victor was able to find out how scammers managed to empty his bank account.

He learned that his father was instructed to buy hundreds of dollars worth of Apple gift cards at supermarkets and give the serial number to the caller from Thailand.

Mr Shaw was also urged to transfer money to a cryptocurrency account or click on links promising thousands in grants.

His notes also include references to ‘AnyDesk’, a software program that allows scammers to remotely access computers once it is downloaded onto the device.

Victor believes the scheme was how scammers primarily drained his account, making several transfers ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 to an unknown person’s account.

The suspicious transfers were picked up by ANZ’s fraud detection system and the account was suspended.

Mr Shaw’s notes show that the scammers contacted him again and coached him on how to reactivate the account in the following weeks, only to have it completely drained.

‘Ask them to unlock my account. Do not mention AnyDesk,” Shaw wrote after speaking to the scammers.

Based on the evidence gathered, Victor filed a formal complaint with ANZ, but the bank gave him little encouragement.

ANZ returned all of Mr Shaw’s stolen money after admitting it ‘could have done more’ to stop the scam

“They just said, ‘Look, we’re going to try to get it back, normally we can get a little bit, but don’t get your hopes up too much,'” Victor said.

Three months after the complaint was made, Victor was surprised to receive a letter informing him that ANZ would refund the full amount.

“Following our review of this matter … ANZ recognizes that it could have done more to support Mr Shaw given his history of fraud,” the bank said.

Victor said he couldn’t have dreamed of such a good outcome, especially after talking to others who took away his hopes.

“We thought we might get a couple thousand dollars back or something. But it’s an incredible relief,” Victor said.

In a statement, ANZ said the ABC scam was an “insidious problem”.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing cases where cybercriminals are targeting some of our most vulnerable customers,” said ANZ head of customer protection Shaq Johnson.

The bank declined to provide more details about how it could have done more to support Alex and why a full refund was offered.

Victor has set himself up as power of attorney with ANZ to secure Alex’s finances.

Daily Mail Australia contacted ANZ for comment.