Scams and con artists have always been with us, but the digital age seems to have ramped up the number of people who are losing their shirts to criminals posing as friendlies.
A Melbourne, Australia, couple is out half a million dollars after a clever scammer convinced them to transfer the money into an account owned by the scammer. The criminal apparently hacked into a server the couple uses; one of them (the media will not say which one) works in the financial and information technology sectors.
Media are also not releasing the identity of the victims.
Apparently, one of the pair received an email they thought was sent by a lawyer working for their interests. Thinking this was just an ordinary request, they complied with the request to transfer the money. One member of the couple (the awkward phrasing is owing to media refusal to specify detail) said their “stomach dropped immediately” when they realized the request was not legitimate. They heard from the financial company that was working for them only after the transfer had been made, learning that they had been taken to cleaners.
The wife in the couple said both experienced extreme stress and panic. “I’ve ruined our lives,” the wife recounted saying to her husband. The money was all they had to their names.
Both the bank working for the couple, and the bank used by the scammer, deny any responsibility for facilitating the half-million-dollar transfer. Investigating police say that by the time the couple filed the scam report, the criminal had already converted their money into untraceable cryptocurrency.
It is likely impossible that the couple’s money will ever be recovered. The slim reed of hope they are holding onto is that perhaps their lawyer’s liability insurance will make them whole.
Countries that are part of the United Kingdom’s Commonwealth refer to specialist lawyers who work on buying and selling real estate as “conveyancers.” The Australian Institute of Conveyancers says it is working with its counterparts in the banking sector to plug security gaps to prevent future losses like this one.
