2023-10-21 19:38:35
Virginia Malcher had an old couch she was wanting to get rid of.
After being told it wouldn’t be accepted by a local op shop because it wasn’t in the best nick, she decided to sell it online via classifieds website Gumtree.
This simple decision resulted in the loss of faith in her bank — and saw more than $1,000 taken from her account.
The keen buyer
A woman responded to Ms Malcher’s ad rather quickly, contacting her via messaging platform WhatsApp.
“I got this call straight away from this woman,” she explains.
“She said she lived in Brisbane and really wanted it.”
A screenshot of a scam portal used to collect a victim’s financial information. (Supplied)
Keep in mind, Ms Malcher lives in NSW, so the buyer would have had to get the couch couriered to her.
“I said, ‘it’s going to cost you a lot’ and she was like ‘my company will get it’,” Ms Malcher says.
“I’ll send you the courier details – give me your account and I’ll pay straight away.”
Ms Malcher says the courier company looked legitimate. (Supplied)
At this point, Ms Malcher says there were alarm bells going off in her head, but the courier form sent by the supposed buyer appeared to be genuine.
The message Ms Malcher was sent had all the branding and features you’d expect.
It also was a company she’d heard of before.
So she gave the buyer her bank card details.
The scammer told Ms Malcher she would arrange to have the couch sent interstate. (Supplied)
But it was a fake.
The text from Westpac
“Just as soon as I’d given her my account I got a text from Westpac saying ‘roughly $1,100 came out of your account in New Zealand’,” she says.
“I straight away realised what was happening.
“I said to this woman ‘I’m an aged pensioner, how can you do this to somebody?’
“And that’s when she started abusing me.”
The scammer became abusive following Ms Malcher revealed she was on to them. (Supplied)
Ms Malcher says the buyer was sending her abusive and threatening messages on WhatsApp and began calling “every few minutes”.
“I managed to get a couple of screenshots of the abuse and everything and then it started coming in a different language.
“My heart was pounding and I’m taking as many screenshots of everything I might.
“She deleted the (Whatsapp) number really quick and I had no record following that.”
Ms Malcher says she managed to take a few screenshots of the scammers messages before the conversation was deleted. (Supplied)
The refund
Ms Malcher said Westpac responded really quickly.
“While I was contacting her, Westpac sent a text saying ‘if you need to stop [transactions] tell us yes straight away’,” she says.
“I had said to Westpac to stop it, they told me to ring
“I got on to Westpac … they cancelled the card straight away and they issued me with a new card.”
And the bank was fast to respond with a refund.
“I told them what had happened and they gave me my money back pretty quick.”
Within regarding a fortnight, Ms Malcher had her money back and a new card, assuming it was all over.
She raved regarding how great Westpac had been to her friends.
That was in November, but the new year brought new complications.
The ‘delivery confirmation’
“I got this email from Westpac saying that the company that I bought from was able to prove that I received the goods,” she says.
“So I started off once more.”
Ms Malcher says Westpac received a “delivery confirmation” from the scammers stating that she’d bought and received glassware from NZ.
“They’ve got to take the word of this stupid piece of paper – anybody can produce that,” she says.
So she submitted a transaction dispute and a complaint to Westpac.
But it didn’t go in her favour.
The bank closed her case and took back the refund they’d paid to her the previous year.
Here’s a snippet from the email she received when she was notified regarding her case being closed:
“Our investigation shows the card was present at the point of purchase, effectively authorising the transaction.
“As the card wasn’t reported lost or stolen, we are unfortunately unable to intervene to obtain a refund for you.”
Ms Malcher says she kept trying to contact the bank regarding her situation and left messages with someone assigned to her case, but never got to speak to them.
“I finally got a sympathetic person – they said ‘we totally understand and I’m sorry that you were treated like that but unfortunately we have to draw the line somewhere’,” she says.
“I was the stupid idiot who gave them my account details.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to have to cop this because I made that stupid error’.”
But despite understanding all this, Ms Malcher felt let down by her bank.
What made it worse for her was that she’d worked at the bank in the past.
“The hardest part was the fact that they wouldn’t believe me and they took the word of this supposed delivery docket,” she says.
“It’s the fact my case was so blatantly obvious that I wasn’t actually buying anything.”
Read more regarding scams in Australia:
The bank’s refund reversal … reversed
The ABC put questions regarding Ms Malcher’s experience to Westpac.
We asked regarding why Westpac had ruled the card was “present at the point of purchase” when the only reason she’d found out regarding it was because the bank queried whether she was actually making a transaction in a different country.
We also asked why her card wasn’t reported lost or stolen meant the bank mightn’t give her a refund.
“Due to confidentiality obligations we are unable to comment on individual customer matters,” a Westpac spokesperson said.
“Stopping scams is one of our biggest priorities and we are continuing to invest significantly in scam prevention measures.
“Where customers take decisions to transfer their money to scammers, we work hard to recover funds on their behalf where possible.”
Not long following the questions were put to Westpac, Ms Malcher contacted us to say she had been given the money back by Westpac.
She was re-refunded — and, she says, she also received an apology.
Be wary of scammers posing as buyers on online marketplaces. (>: Giulio Saggin)
Money-back pledges have conditions
We looked at the big four banks — ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac — for their stances on refunds for fraudulent transactions.
All four have money-back guarantees, pledging 100 per cent refunds for fraudulent transactions, but they all come with a caveat.
They all have a variation of “so long as the customer did not contribute to the loss” added as a stipulation.
Here’s a snippet from the Commonwealth Bank’s terms and conditions regarding disputing unauthorised transactions:
“An unauthorised transaction is a transaction which is carried out by someone besides you without your knowledge and consent.
“This does not include, for example, a transaction as a result of a fraudster tricking you into giving them your access codes.”
Here’s what Westpac’s policy says:
“Our Westpac Fraud Money Back Guarantee ensures that customers will be reimbursed for any unauthorised transactions provided that the customer has not contributed to the loss and contacted Westpac promptly.”
Quite a process
Ms Malcher’s story ended on a high note.
But it took a lot of screenshots, emailing and calling to make it happen.
And, even though she was wary of scammers, she also had the foresight and technical ability to make records of her contact with the scammer.
On top of this, she had the added credibility of being a former Westpac employee.
And yet, she still had a difficult time.
She worries regarding how difficult it wold be for more vulnerable people to dispute something like this.
“They’ve got no hope,” she says.
Oh, and the couch she wanted to get rid of?
After all that, she eventually found a charity to take it off her hands.
What should you be watching out for?
Westpac says to be wary of links texted or emailed to you.
“We are continuing to see fraudsters target Australians through phishing links, which allows the scammer to gain access to a customer’s device and personal information,” a Westpac spokesperson said.
“Never click on any link that’s sent via text message or email asking you to download software, provide personal details or make a payment.
“Westpac will never send links in unsolicited text messages.”
Pack and Send has put out warnings regarding scammers using their branding to trick people into handing over their financial details.
“Occasionally, people take advantage of Pack and Send’s reputation by using our name or services to mislead internet shoppers,” the company says.
“The fraudulent communications typically are a request for advance electronic transfer of money to pay for goods ordered on the internetbefore the goods will be allegedly delivered by Pack and Send.
“Please note that Pack and Send does not request, via unsolicited post or e-mail, any payment or personal information in return for goods in transit or in Pack and Send’s custody.”
We contacted Gumtree to ask regarding the company’s anti-scams policy, but we got no response.
However, its website does point out the following:
“Gumtree is a local classifieds website and ads aren’t reviewed before they go live on the site.
“Gumtree doesn’t offer any sort of buyer protection / payment programs.”
It also offers this advice to customers regarding scams:
While the vast majority of experiences on Gumtree are successful and hassle-free, we always recommend our users to follow these simple steps to ensure they get the best out of their use of Gumtree:
Never send money by bank transfer or a payment service that is not PayPal through Gumtree messages. We only recommend Gumtree’s PayPal integration or cash in person.If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t trueAlways use common sense
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