Family lose $100,000 in hacking scam
The ANZ bank has wiped its hands of a $100,000 mistake, which has left a Victoria family struggling to pay for their new home.
The money was accidentally transferred to a convicted hacker who is now in jail for the fraud.
It was meant to be the dream home for the Woodward family, but the last nine months have been a nightmare.
When their builder emailed them a $98,000 invoice for work on their new Brighton home they paid up, not realising a Melbourne cyberhacker had intercepted it and changed the account details to his own.
When the ANZ transferred the money it went to the fake account. By the time the scam was detected the money was already gone.
Andrew Woodward said: “It’s staggering. Cross checks and balances, none of that happens, and in between that the money had been lifted by the fraudster.”
Martine Woodward added: “It feels like your house has been robbed in a way. I couldn't tell you the amount of time we've both been awake at two or three o’clock in the morning, heads ticking over about all this, how are we going to survive this.”
Hacker Patrick Bernard is now in jail, but the ANZ is refusing to help.
The bank says it simply did what it was asked - transferring the $98,000 into the account number on the invoice and that it is the customer's responsibility to make sure that information is correct.
The banks' code of conduct only covers mistaken transfers if the bank is alerted within a week and the money is still there.
The Woodwards hope a financial ombudsman investigation will force ANZ to pay.
