Bank impersonation scam nets $200k from Suncorp customers

The alarming Suncorp Bank ‘impersonation scam’ has snowballed, with more distraught victims coming forward to reveal tens of thousands of dollars stolen by scammers.

Jasmine Bourchier and Daniel Josifovski were already agonising over how they were going to cope financially with the arrival of triplets next year when they lost $50,000 in the “spoofing” scam Picture: Martin Ollman

The alarming Suncorp Bank impersonation scam has snowballed, with more distraught victims coming forward to tell how they’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars.

A couple expecting triplets and a businessman have emerged as the latest Suncorp customers to fall prey to the scammers, who use what appears to be the bank’s actual phone number and text messaging service to plunder accounts of people’s life savings.

It follows last week’s Sunday Mail revelations about a Brisbane couple who lost almost $80,000 in the sophisticated scam, cleaning out their bank account.

Almost $200,000 has been stolen from Suncorp customer accounts in the three cases alone, but the bank is refusing to say how many other victims have been identified or if a full-scale investigation has been launched.

It admits recent data breaches – such as the Optus and Medibank hacks – are behind a rise in increasingly sophisticated scams in which cyber-criminals impersonate banks, government departments and businesses to pull off devastating swindles.

The Sunday Mail revealed last week that Brisbane couple Michael and Rachel Jorgensen had lost almost more than $78,000 after a phone call from a smooth-talking scammer with a British accent who rang from a number mimicking Suncorp’s Brisbane landline.

They were told their account had been compromised and that they needed to transfer their funds into a new account.

The scammer sent them texts and authentication codes on the same SMS trail on which they’d previously received legitimate messages from Suncorp.

Other victims have now come forward to tell how they, too, have been swindled in what appears to be a growing large-scale scam.

Michael and Rachel Jorgensen’s heartbreaking ordeal was reported last week. Picture: David Clark

They include Canberra couple Jasmine Bourchier and Daniel Josifovski and Toowoomba businessman Scott Bransdon, who lost $100,000 between them.

Ms Bourchier said she and her husband’s case was almost identical to the Jorgensens’ except they only received a phone call from someone claiming to be from the bank who rang on Suncorp’s number to tell them that their account was under threat and they needed to move over to a “secure account”.

“The next morning, I found out that (he) was in fact the scammer and we had lost our $50,000 instantly,” she said.

“It has left my husband and I in absolute devastation. The day that we discovered the funds were gone (November 9) was the day we were meant to be celebrating the milestone of making it through the first trimester of my triplet pregnancy.

“We’re going to be first-time parents and prior to this happening, we were unsure as to whether we could financially support three children at once.

“Now, our life savings have been wiped out overnight and it’s left us in an even more stressful financial and mental state.”

Ms Bourchier said Suncorp had shown little compassion or assistance and it was only when she turned up at a bank branch in tears that the case was escalated.

“I received no updates from Suncorp until two weeks later, when they advised that there was a nine out 10 chance we would not be reimbursed,” she said.

“They also failed to acknowledge that any potential data breach may be involved … to know that we’re Suncorp customers from the outset.”

Ms Bourchier said the Commonwealth Bank, into which the scammers funnelled the money, had also failed to help, refusing to talk with them and referring them back to Suncorp.

“I think both Suncorp and the Commonwealth Bank need to show some empathy and take some responsibility for what’s happened to us and other victims of this scam,” she said.

Suncorp says impersonation scams are widespread, and its customers aren’t the only ones falling victim to increasingly sophisticated scammer tactics.

A Suncorp spokeswoman said the bank’s systems had not been breached as a result of the recent data breaches.“This is an impersonation scam that is an industry wide issue and scammers tactics are becoming increasingly sophisticated,” she said.

“They have capitalised on recent data breaches to impersonate banks, government departments and businesses to convince Australians to part ways with their money and it is devastating to see the impacts on victims.”

The spokeswoman said the bank was limited in what it could say as the scam cases exposed by The Sunday Mail were under review or before the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

“However, we are aware that scammers have been contacting Suncorp Bank customers pretending to be a member of our fraud and investigations team,” she said.

“As soon as we became aware of this, we notified all Suncorp Bank customers via our app, internet banking, social media and website of this particular scam, and to be alert should they receive these types of text messages or phone calls.

“We also engaged the telephone service provider and Australian Communications and Media Authority to have the numbers used by these scammers disconnected.”

She said Suncorp would never ask customers to send money to another bank account and if they received an unsolicited call, they should hang up immediately and call the bank’s listed phone number.

‘BANK JUST DIDN’T CARE’

A Toowoomba businessman who lost $50,000 in the Suncorp Bank scam says he was forced to go to police to secretly record the fraudster in the act because the bank “wasn’t interested”.

Scott Bransdon is furious after being scammed of the money he had set aside to pay a tax bill last month.

Like other victims, he was contacted by the scammer on what appeared to be Suncorp’s real phone number.

“He even told me he could see I had a $5000 daily transfer limit which kind of blew my mind (in hindsight),” Mr Bransdon said.

He said the scammer then talked him through how to increase his transfer limit so the money could be channelled into a “secure account”.

Instead, he discovered it had been siphoned into a Commonwealth Bank account and disappeared.

Mr Bransdon said after Suncorp’s fraud team told him he’d been scammed and the case was closed, he rang the bank back to say he was “pretty sure this guy (the scammer) is going to ring me back to try to get more money”.

“They were like, ‘he won’t, he’s got his $50k, he’s gone’,” he said.

“They weren’t interested.”

Mr Bransdon said when the man rang him the next morning, he told him to ring back in an hour and contacted the bank, who again said his case was closed.

Mr Bransdon said he was working in Brisbane and pulled in to Stafford police station moments before the scammer phoned him back.

Police recorded the conversation before ordering him to cut the call just as the scammer thought he was in for another payday.

“They were pretty spun out, the cops – they were just like ‘wow, this guy’s good’,” Mr Bransdon said.

“I’ve since learned that the first $17,000 transfer I made should have been flagged as suspicious because it was over the $10,000 PayID limit.”

Mr Bransdon said he had been forced to dip into his super to pay the tax bill.

“Losing the money hurt, but what’s made me most cranky is the bank not doing anything to stop it,” he said.

“I want to put a stop to this before the scammers target someone whose life is going to be really ruined, like a retiree or a young person.”

Originally published as Bank impersonation scam nets $200k from Suncorp customers