Queensland woman loses $57k in phone hack scam

An Aussie woman has issued a warning after a scammer stole her life savings through what appears to be no fault of her own.

An Aussie woman has issued a warning after a scammer stole her life savings through what appears to be no fault of her own.

Deslie Harvey, a 79-year-old grandmother from Queensland, recounted her horror at sitting in hospital with her sick husband when, in the space of less than 30 minutes, she watched on as her bank account was wiped clean.

A hacker had somehow gained control of her phone remotely and successfully put through seven transactions.

They were able to bypass security measures when an authorisation code was sent to her mobile – as they already had access.

Everything in Ms Harvey’s Macquarie Bank account – $57,000 – was drained instantly.

And it was only after this happened that Macquarie restricted her account because it recognised there was “unusual activity” taking place.

Deslie Harvey is furious at Macquarie Bank.

“I was horrified because the whole account had been drained of everything … there was nothing much left in the account at all,” Ms Harvey told A Current Affair.

And despite flagging the fraud with her bank straight away, Macquarie was only able to salvage a tiny portion of the lost funds.

A measly $4623 was returned to her, she has revealed, more than a year since the ordeal.

And in that period of time, Ms Harvey still has no idea how her phone was compromised.

And frustratingly, she doesn’t have any other answers either.

“Well I think Macquarie should be able to admit that they didn’t act as well as what they should have and didn’t act quick enough,” Ms Harvey said.

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The hacker took out cards in her name,

Later, she realised the identity thief hadn’t stopped there.

The criminal had ordered credit cards in her name which arrived in the mail.

And growing more audacious, having gotten away with everything else, the scammer also tried to buy $8000 worth of jewellery while also trying to spend $15,000 on mobile phones on eBay.

Luckily, the latter two purchases were both declined.

To make matters worse, Ms Harvey’s husband ended up dying in hospital shortly afterwards.

Macquarie Bank did not respond specifically to Ms Harvey’s case but said to A Current Affair it had “robust” scam protections for customers.

“Customers should never share sensitive login information with anyone, this includes account and device passwords or passcodes to their online and mobile banking,” a spokesperson added.

Australians lost $2.7 billion to scams last year, according to the ACCC’s ScamWatch.

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