Grandmother customer loses $750,000 in ANZ account to scam

An Australian grandmother has been scammed out of $750,000 after accidentally sending money to a fraudulent bank account.

Jane, who has been an ANZ customer for almost 50 years, has turned to the banks after losing the huge sum of money.

The grandmother had sold her house and tried to transfer money to an ING account for a better interest rate.

But instead, she was instructed by scammers to transfer the money to a fraudulent NAB account.

Jane contacted ANZ and NAB after realizing what had happened, but was told by both banks that her money was lost and there was little they could do to retrieve it.

Jane says she has since lost confidence in the banks as a result of the incident.

“I used to have ultimate confidence in the banking system,” she said 7News.

“But my money would have been safer under my mattress.”

Her daughter, Sarah, recalled feeling “terrible” that her mother had been “the victim of such a huge crime.”

Jane was later offered $1,000 from ANZ in compensation.

Australians who have been scammed are advised to contact their bank immediately.

However, there is little that banks can actually do to recover lost money.

Bank customers in Australia are not protected by law when it comes to fraud.

This is in contrast to countries such as Britain, where from next year new laws will force banks to refund scam victims within days unless the person has acted negligently or fraudulently.

Consumer Action Law Center CEO Stephanie Tonkin believes Australians are wide open to scams due to a lack of regulation.

Jane tried to transfer money to an ING account for a better interest rate, but was told by scammers to transfer the money to a fraudulent NAB account (stock image)

“We dropped the ball because we don’t have any kind of strict regulations saying who’s responsible,” she told the network.

She has previously called for tougher laws to be passed to protect customers.

“It cannot be the job of consumers to be the ones to report the scams – what is needed is for the bank to invest in measures to prevent scams before they reach consumers,” she told the paper. ABC earlier this year.

‘The UK, years ahead of us, has identified that bank reimbursement is the right approach to effectively tackle scams, so we will be strongly pushing for this to be included in the code of practice.’

In April, a report from the ACCC revealed Australians lost $3.1 billion to fraud in 2022, prompting the federal government to allocate $86.5 million to tackle online fraud.