A NAB branch manager from St Ives helped save a customer from losing $400,000 to a sophisticated invoice scam.
Just before Christmas, Dennis*, a regular customer of the St Ives branch in NSW wanted to deposit a $400,000 cheque to his solicitor for a property purchase.
Dennis works in property development and had purchased property before through the same solicitor, so despite it being a big sum of money, this wasn’t completely foreign to Dennis, and he trusted his solicitor.
The solicitor sent an invoice via email with all the payment details, and Dennis printed this off to complete the payment in the branch.
What Dennis or his solicitor didn’t know was criminals hacked into the solicitor’s emails and sent an identical-looking invoice. All the details looked the same, even the name of the email address matched, but the BSB and account number changed to a different bank.
Having been trained to spot red flags with invoice scams, NAB St Ives Branch Manager, Anu Mishra said he began asking Dennis questions to ensure everything was legitimate.
“We’re trained to ask questions to understand the situation more and wanted to make sure the details were definitely correct,” Anu said.
“Some people feel like we’re being nosey by asking questions, or that we don’t trust someone, but what we’re really trying to do is to make sure customers aren’t getting caught up in a scam.”
Unfortunately invoice scams can be tricky for a customer to spot as the customer has no reason to doubt the person who sent the invoice.
Anu asked Dennis whether he had another recent invoice to support the payment details as legitimate, but he didn’t have matching documentation which was enough for Anu to slow down and wait for confirmation of the details.
“Understandably, the customer wants the payment to go through as quickly as possible, but when there’s a red flag for a scam, it’s more important to make sure we take our time to get the details right,” Anu said.
While waiting for Dennis to speak to his solicitor, another email came through from the solicitor’s email address urging Dennis to make the payment. This was followed by a call on WhatsApp, and when Dennis noticed a different accent on the caller, it caused him to cast doubt over the authenticity of the invoice. That’s when Anu decided against completing the transfer.
“It felt like we were being unhelpful by not making the payment that day, but that’s what we needed to do to ensure we didn’t fall for the scam when scammers are trying to create a sense of urgency,” Anu said.
Dennis came back into the branch the following day and seemed quite shaken.
“He had spoken to his solicitor that morning and found out that the payment details were changed, the emails were hacked, and he realised just how close he came to losing $400,000. The solicitor had no idea they’d been compromised either,” Anu said.
