Sydney son loses $240k in task scam as money ends up in Binance account
A Sydney dad lost his lifesavings when he lent his son the money with the man pleading with the scammers to return the money.
Costs
Don't miss out on the headlines from Costs. Followed categories will be added to My News.
“These Lebanese lenders will definitely kill him if the money is not returned” – that’s the plea that came from one Sydney dad to scammers after his son lost $240,000, including the family’s life savings.
Justin* said the family is devastated after his 20-year-old son was caught up in a scam while he was applying for jobs – where he was approached by a supposed recruitment agency.
He was offered a job where he could earn money by ‘product boosting’ items for sale on a site, which involved investing his own money as well.
Initially, he said his son made around $300 a day so was “sucked into the legitimacy of the scam”.
But as his son poured more money into the scheme – pleading with Justin to help him finance it – problems started to arise.
The 55-year-old said he gave his son the family’s life savings and has now been left in a “terrible” position.
“Unfortunately, I took money out of my offset account and it came to a point where I coudn't give him more and then the scammers refused to give him a refund at all,” he told news.com.au.
“It’s money I had saved over the last 22 years and basically I can’t retire.
“My son was pleading – he said dad it’s all safe, you will get the money back and unfortunately I kept on giving him money – that’s my mistake as well I should not have. He was crying and saying give me the money.”
All up his son lost $240,000 that he borrowed in January across just two weeks, including $20,000 from friends and the family’s lifesaving as well money made from gold that they sold.
“If he put in $100,000, he thought he would make $10,000 to $12,000, so he put in $240,000 and he was expecting to pocket around $25,000 and he would be a happy boy but unfortunately now we are all distressed,” he added.
Justin’s son had been caught up in something known as a task scam involving a website or mobile app that claims you can earn money by completing easy tasks, such as watching a video, liking a post, or creating an order.
But the catch is you can only earn money for a limited amount of tasks before being asked to invest your own money to upgrade your account or meet certain targets, attracting increasing fees.
Then it becomes impossible to withdraw any supposed earnings made.
The website Justin’s son used was called Sellfy Software and the scam saw the $240,000 ending up in a cryptocurrency account that was later distributed to other wallets.
“To show they are legitimate, what they are doing is they had created a WhatsApp group with people saying they have this much money and I’m getting the money back and my son fell into that trap,” Justin explained.
“I tried to call each and everyone in that group and not a single person picked up the phone. I sent a message about my misfortune and how we never got our money back and not a single person replied.
“I have given that number to the police and tried to search for the numbers on the telco sites and their numbers are not listed.”
Have a similar story? Continue the conversation | sarah.sharples@news.com.au
A series of WhatsApp messages reveal the scammers trying to exhort even more money from the family after they realised it was all fake.
A message to Justin’s dad from the scammers said: “What situation have you encountered so far? As far as I know he still needs to pay the last 37k”.
“But his reputation score is too low, now he needs to deposit 37k just to raise the reputation score to 100%, it can withdraw to Binance in one go,” another WhatsApp message read.
But Justin’s dad tried to trick the scammers himself in an attempt to get some of the money back.
The Lebanese lenders were not real but Justin claimed they had left his son in hospital with fractured legs after beating him with hockey sticks when he couldn’t repay the loaned money.
The Sydney dad begged the scammers to “assist as he will be attacked again. Without money repaid, he will definitely be attacked” claiming his son had borrowed $150,000 from them.
“It will leave him at their mercy and these guys r merciless. They have already bashed him badly and they will come back again,” he said in another message.
Unfortunately, Justin’s attempt to play the scammers at their own game didn’t work.
“They are hardcore hardened criminals," he added.
Justin said NSW police are investigating the scam and he was told the money had gone into “hot” crypto account meaning they could not identify the person who owned it.
The investigating officer also told Justin that this type of fraud was usually committed by offenders based overseas and “unfortunately the money is likely going to end up overseas which makes it near impossible to recover”.
As a result of the loss of Justin’s lifesavings, the interest rate on his mortgage had skyrocketed from around 1 per cent to 5 per cent, meaning he was forced to fork out an extra $2000 a month to meet his repayments.
“My entire savings over the last 22 years has been lost – it’s terrible – and I’m worried about ending up on the streets,” he added.
“I do not want any other Australian caught up in this scam.
“We are in big distress at the moment without this money which I don’t have hope to recover.”
Justin also lodged a fraud complaint with Commonwealth Bank as the family are upset no warnings came up when they transferred the money.
CBA was unable to recover the $240,000 that had been transferred into a Binance account.
A CBA spokesperson acknowledged the impact frauds and scams are having on customers and the community broadly.
“We’re aware of task-based scams in which scammers contact you via WhatsApp or through social media with an offer to earn lucrative money by completing tasks on a website or app and in exchange for an upfront or ongoing investment fees,” they said.
“In this instance we understand (the customer) fell victim to a type of task-based investment scam. Once contacted by (the customer) we attempted to recover the funds, however unfortunately have been unsuccessful.”
The account the money was transferred into was with Binance but Justin said he hasn’t heard anything from the company despite trying to contact them.
A Binance spokesperson said this was an unfortunate case of someone falling victim to a scam in which fraudsters use any type of exchange, bank, or money transfer platform to expose their victims.
“We are fully committed to combating financial crime in the region and have a team of experienced financial crime risk professionals who work closely with law enforcement on each case by providing on-chain analysis to assist their investigations and actions,” they said.
“We are also proud of our robust transaction monitoring tools detecting, identifying, and investigating crypto transactions including but not limited to suspicious wallet, dark web, and black-listed addresses.
“While Binance takes its responsibility to protect users seriously, user education and vigilance can help prevent users from falling victim to predatory scams.
We do our best to educate and inform our users of potential scams but will not be responsible for users’ personal losses.”
All affected parties are encouraged to contact both Binance Australia and law enforcement to lodge a formal request for investigation, they added.
The CBA spokesperson added there are certain things Australians should be on the look out for when it comes to task scams including being wary of being contacted out of the blue via WhatsApp or social media and promised large investment returns for completing simple tasks. “You will often be asked to download an app to participate and to invest a small upfront fee,” they said.
“Be suspicious if the app you are asked to download isn’t hosted on the App / Google Play store. It often needs to be downloaded via a link or access with an invite code.
“Exercise caution if you’re promised ‘easy money’ which can appear to be large investment returns in exchange for simple tasks and also linked to how much you are willing to invest.”
Australians lost a record $3.1 billion to scams last year, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commision, an 80 per cent increase compared to 2021.
*Name changed for privacy reasons
Originally published as Sydney son loses $240k in task scam as money ends up in Binance account
The biggest roadblock to buying a home has changed
High house prices are no longer the biggest barrier to home ownership, as buyers seek new ways to get a foot in the door.
Huge cash boost for millions of Aussies
More than five million Aussies will get an increase to their fortnightly payments as of Friday – with some now set to pocket up to $41.50 every two weeks.