Canberra widower traumatized after $5,000 stolen from his ANZ account in sneaky Kuwait scam and bank bosses allegedly refusing to act
- A Canberra man, 61, had $5,000 stolen from his ANZ account
- ANZ did not want to cancel the funds that had been pending for five days
A grieving 61-year-old man said a shocking scam left him in limbo for six weeks as he mourned the death of his wife and feared being robbed again.
The Canberra man said he was waiting outside his law office to finalize his late wife’s final estate last May when he received messages from his two banks.
The texts warned of “suspicious” activity in his Great Southern Bank and ANZ accounts.
When he checked, he discovered that an unknown thief had spent $10,000 of his hard-earned money in Kuwait in the Middle East.
A Canberra man, 61, had more than $5,000 stolen from his ANZ account last May (pictured, the fraudulent transfers)
“I was pretty stressed anyway because of my wife’s death, I was at my lowest point,” he said news.com.au.
Great Southern Bank was able to quickly halt the transactions.
However, ANZ is said to have refused to cancel the two $2,676.19 transactions debited from the account – despite both still being ‘pending’ when the man discovered them.
He claims ANZ staff said they would not be able to investigate the matter until the transfers were cleared from the account.
When asked why the bank couldn’t prevent the stolen money from leaving the account, the reason was that it “couldn’t penalize the merchant,” he said.
“They waited for five days. All I could do was wait for the money to leave my account. I went back and forth with ANZ for the whole five days,” the man said.
He described the bank’s final investigation as ‘six weeks of hell’ and lodged a complaint, which was later withdrawn, with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
Eventually, the Canberran’s funds were recovered in full, but he was never told how the thieves managed to get his bank details.
The man claims that ANZ (above) refused to cancel the fraudulent payments while they were ‘pending’ for five days because it ‘did not want to penalize the merchant’
He claims that he now goes about his daily life, constantly wondering when he will fall victim to another scam.
“I check my bank accounts every few hours. Every call I get is suspicious,” he said.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted ANZ for comment.