Single text message costs Sydney man $50,000 in a heartless scam just before Christmas

A Sydney man has been left “devastated” after cruel scammers tricked him into giving up his personal details, allowing them to steal almost $50,000.

Gerald Chin, 41, had planned to take his elderly parents on a trip to the United States this Christmas before he was scammed out of $49,000.

Mr Chin received what he thought was an innocent text message from HSBC asking him to call them on the evening of 29 November.

The text message appeared in the same thread as the actual text messages from the bank, leading him to believe it was not a scam.

Gerald Chin, 41, was planning to take his elderly parents on a trip to the United States this Christmas before he was scammed out of $49,000.

The text message appeared in the same message thread as legitimate text messages from the bank, leading him to think it was not a scam (text in photo).

AAfter dialing the number from a text message, he spoke to a scammer named Adrian, who spoke with a British accent. During the phone call, he was asked to provide his username and personal details so his identity could be verified.

Chin was told that someone in Perth tried to hack into his account and transfer $49,000, but HSBC’s fraud team blocked the operation.

Adrian then suggested that he lock his account to prevent further hacking attempts and asked him to provide the bank codes from his phone.

Chin initially thought the phone call was legitimate because he had not received notifications that funds had been transferred from his account.

However, when the scammer called back the next day and asked for bank codes again, everything suddenly worked.

By the time Chin called his bank, $49,000 had disappeared from his account.

He has been “traumatized” by the elaborate scam and is struggling to sleep at night, now his personal information is known to the scammers.

Mr Chin had planned to take his elderly parents on an all-expenses-paid trip to the United States to surprise his younger brother over the holiday period.

“I’m also not sure if I’ll get another opportunity as this whole incident has set me back a few years,” he said. 7News.

“I am devastated and devastated to realize I was scammed as it took a long time to save up this money and now the financial stress has set in knowing I will struggle to pay my mortgage and bills.”

An HSBC customer says he was ‘traumatised’ by the elaborate scam and is having difficulty sleeping at night now his personal information is known to scammers

A mockup of fraudulent text messages sent to business owner Paul Tefry earlier this year.

Mr Chin is now working with HSBC’s anti-fraud team to try to get his money back; however, there is no guarantee that he will be reimbursed.

He believes more measures need to be put in place to protect bank customers from being scammed by savvy fraudsters.

“I was outraged that there were no transaction notifications sent to my mobile phone or email, which would have encouraged me to act more quickly given that it was a fairly large amount of money,” he said.

In a statement, an HSBC spokesperson said they could not discuss the specific case due to confidentiality, but said the bank takes customer safety “very seriously”.

“We thoroughly investigate any reports of fraud or fraud,” they said.

“We advise customers to ignore any requests for their sensitive information, such as PINs, login passwords or verification codes, through phone calls, email or SMS messages.”

In June, an ANZ bank customer was robbed of $130,000 in just five minutes after being contacted by a scammer with a British accent.

A fake message from scammers told Paul his ANZ account had been compromised and appeared in the same chat as other legitimate messages from the bank.

Paul Tefri received a text message that he believed was sent from his bank, saying that his account had been hacked and that he needed to transfer his money.

Over the next four days, Mr Trefry transferred $130,000 to a new, “more secure” account run by the scammers.

A week later, ANZ Bank contacted him and said he had been scammed.

“I was asked about transferring $17,500 into an account and I said, ‘Well, guys, I’m just following your instructions,’ and they said, ‘No, we won’t instruct you to transfer money to different accounts.’ ‘.

“…He (the ANZ representative) said, ‘Look, these guys are running a really elaborate scam and they’re copying the ANZ protocol to the fullest extent, unfortunately there’s not much we can do for you.’ ‘.’

ANZ returned some of the money, but Trefry was still $85,000 out of pocket.