"How could they be so cruel?" Elderly woman conned out of life savings
An elderly woman from Sydney says she feels "violated" her after savings account was emptied in a cruel impersonation scam.
Maureen Deans, 86, was left with next to nothing in her bank account after the scammers took $25,000.
"How could they be so cruel? I'm horrified that people would do this sort of thing," Maureen told 9News.
"I was left with no money to pay my bills."
On July 29th Maureen's daughter Joanne got a text from a number claiming to be Medicare, saying she had been in close contact with a person who had tested positive for Covid-19.
The message included a link to order a coronavirus test kit.
At the time, Joanne was not aware of similar text scams and clicked on the link.
"Someone at my work had just tested positive to the coronavirus. I could just kick myself now, but that's the reason I clicked on the link," she said.
Joanne was then asked to enter her credit card details to complete her purchase, along with her home address for delivery.
Soon after handing over the information, Joanne realised it was likely a scam and went into her local St George branch to report the incident and express her concern that her card details had likely been compromised.
Then, less than a week later on August 3, Joanne got a call on her mobile phone from a man named "Simon" who said he was from St George's fraud prevention team.
The man informed Joanne her account had been hacked and said her mother's account, for which she is a signatory, was now compromised.
"He said that he had been authorised by St George Bank to move mum's money over to a brand new account, with a new BSB and account number," Joanne said.
Joanne was originally skeptical of the call, but his professionalism convinced her that the call was legitimate.
"I said, 'Why can't we just go into the bank tomorrow and sort it out there' and he said, 'No, the money will be gone by then,'" she recalled.
"He gave me a reference number and he was very convincing.
"He knew exactly how much money mum had in her pensioner account down to the last cent."
The man then asked Joanne to log onto her mother's internet banking account, and transfer the money to the "new account" in three different transactions.
Joanne was on the phone to the scammer for over an hour, with Maureen growing increasingly suspicious about why the process was taking so long.
"My mum rang my brother who is a lawyer and he said, 'No, no, no it's a scam, get off the phone.'
"But the damage had been done, the money had already been transferred."
Joanne said she was devastated to have been tricked by the scammer.
"It's absolutely awful. It's a lot of money and it's my fault, I should have hung up," she said.
Maureen, who lives in an aged care home and receives the pension, said she had to accept help from her son to pay her bills.
"Fortunately, my son came to my aid and put money in my account, but I have never been in that situation before - I feel violated," she said.
"It took me ages to save up that money and we were going on a cruise next year, which we've had to cancel.
"There's quite a few things we've had to cancel because of this."
Maureen said she was "furious" with St George Bank for not protecting their elderly customers more.
The bank has it had been experiencing a recent spike in impersonation scams where scammers pose as a known business to trick people into sending them money.
"Customers should be wary of any unexpected calls, SMS or emails claiming to be from their bank or other reputable organisation, and always stop to consider what you're being asked to do.
"If in doubt, hang up and call back on a publicly listed number to confirm if the call was genuine."
Image credits: 9News