Australian IT worker loses $150,000 to cunning job scam

A young Aussie has shared how he lost his and his parents’ savings to a job scam, despite being trained in cybersecurity.

An IT worker has shared how he lost $150,000 of his and his parents’ life savings to an elaborate job scam, revealing how convincing some of the plots can be.

Josh*, who is trained in cybersecurity and spoke to media on the condition of anonymity, explained that he clicked on an advert for a Woolworths job on Instagram, believing it was real.

He was directed to a WhatsApp chat, where scammers claimed the Woolies role had been filled but there was another job going at the hotel chain ParkRoyal.

“I’ll just give it a try and see what comes out of it,” Josh told Channel 9 of the gig.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the parts of Woolworths or ParkRoyal, nor that they were aware of the scam in any way.

Josh thought he was working a legitimate job. Picture: iStock.

The 27-year-old underwent training for the role and was provided with online “orders” to fill.

He was even paid $100 into his personal bank account after providing the BSB and account number, adding an extra layer of faux legitimacy to the scam.

Josh was instructed to transfer his own money into the system to receive more orders. He was told that, once he had completed the orders, which could be filled between the hours of 10am and 10pm, he would be paid.

That seemed true after he paid $120, filled 40 orders, and received $500 in “commission”.

At first, it seemed like a lucrative job that many others were doing.

“They had a WhatsApp group that they had me join in as well,” he explained.

“That WhatsApp group was supposedly about people that do the same work and each person would send screenshots of how much they’ve been paid with photos of people, supposedly normal people, living normal lives.”

Job scams like this one have cost Aussies $22.6 million so far this year. Picture: ScamWatch.

But of course, it proved too good to be true.

Eventually, the money stopped coming in, but Josh kept transferring cash in the hopes that he would get more “work”.

Over the course of three days, he transferred $150,000 to the scammers, believing that it would turbocharge his commission.

“Eventually I just emptied my savings accounts,” Josh said.

“What makes it worse is that I reached such a point of desperation that I went into my parents’ accounts and I drained their money as well.”

He said he had access to his parents’ accounts because they were older and spoke limited English, so he was often helping them with finances and other tasks.

“On the third day, it just dawned on me that I had actually got nothing left and that this was all a scam,” Josh said.

“This is me, who works in IT, I have studied for four years at uni for this and I’ve got a cybersecurity diploma.”

Josh lost $150,000 to the scheme. Picture: iStock.

Josh said he felt immense guilt after losing the cash. He told his family 10 months later but was too “embarrassed” to admit how the money had been lost.

“If the job was legitimate, everyone in this world would be signing up to it, to be paid $60 per hour by clicking two buttons on a computer,” he said.

“My whole life has been brought up on technology, phones, computers, software programs. That’s my life.

“I’m like, ‘How the hell did I fall for that?’ It’s just so stupid.”

Josh was warned by his bank that the account to which he was transferring didn’t seem legitimate, but he was so convinced by the scam he ignored the message. He is not eligible for compensation because he transferred the funds after being warned.

Josh has reported the scam to police.

The scammers paid him money at first, making the scheme appear legitimate. Picture: iStock.

Josh said he was diagnosed with depression after being scammed and, a year later, is working with a psychologist to come to terms with the loss.

He said he accepts that it was his own fault he lost the money, but believes social media companies ought to take more responsibility for verifying the job ads on their platforms.

Australians have lost $429 million to scams so far this year, $22.6 million of which was lost to jobs and employment scams, according to ScamWatch.

Scams delivered by social media are the second most lucrative for scammers, having swindled Aussies of $83 million so far this year.

ScamWatch says 4390 Aussies have reported a job or employment scam this year, 28.5 per cent of whom lost money to it.

The real numbers for all of these figures are likely much higher, since many people do not report being scammed.