Unauthorized Transfer of Funds from National Bank Account

Hi all ,

My sister-in-law recently discovered that $1500 had been transferred from her everyday account with National Bank to another account without her knowledge or consent. Despite her claims of not clicking on any suspicious links or using public computers, the bank informed her that the money was being transferred to a dummy account at Bendigo Bank.

Shockingly, the bank has refused to refund her money, even though she did not receive any multi-factor authentication (MFA) prompts, text messages, or emails. As she continues to receive notifications while shopping, & doing bank transfers. Bank is shocked this could happen but still refuse refund. I thought bank would have a duty of care.

I have seen some pensioners lose money in National bank , I think it was 7.30 report. Just beware if you are with this bank.

Has anyone had this situation?

How do we fight this ? Any guidance will be muchly appreciated.

Many thanks !

Comments

  • +4

    Shockingly, the bank has refused to refund her money

    How was she told that - did she simply call the contact centre? Has she gone through the formal dispute process? If not, do that and if that doesn't sort things out (usually it does), then complain to AFCA.

    • Over phone asked her to contact dispute process.
      After getting a police report and sending all details She was told not able to help.

      • Will ask her to contact AFCA , Thank you

  • +1

    The Bendigo Bank account cannot have been opened without ID so ask the bank the account details it went to to take to the police, their fraud department should be on this

    • Privacy act probably prevents this from happening.

      • -3

        not when its thesft and fraud

        • +1

          Yes, Pam, even in the case of thesft theft or fraud, the bank will still not give you the personal details of the account owner, even if that account owner has committed fraud or theft.

          You see, we have a thing in Australia called the presumption of innocence, and the receiving account owner may also be just as unaware of what is going on as what OP is. The account may have been opened in their name using identity theft or they too have had their account illegally accessed or maybe they are an unwitting money mule, there are plenty of reasons why this receiving account owner may be innocent, so the bank isn’t just going to hand over the account owners details no matter how much you stamp your feet and complain about thesft and fraud.

    • That what I thought. I dont think Bendigo bank will help her.

      • so she needs to get ther fraud department on t, and the police

  • -1

    There is no such thing as a dummy account, you need 100 points of ID

    • -4

      There is no such thing as a dummy account

      How many bank accounts do you have?¿

  • +1

    Sorry to hear that, sounds like a mystery. While this is getting investigated, I suggest to lower the daily transfer limit to minimum on the account to prevent reoccurrence

    • Thanks will check with her tomorrow if she done it. I know she did reset the password and making arrangements to move money to another bank.

  • +2

    Was it one lump sum, or several transactions? Was there a reference/note on the transaction/s?

    Has she been a victim of any of the recent hacking breaches?

    Has she used any third party software/platform that required her to input her bank login details? (E.g., Illion Bank Statements, or whatever platforms are going to be recommended in this thread). Using these usually goes against your bank T+Cs and means you aren’t covered for fraud.

    You don’t have to answer any of these here, but they’re some good questions for her to think about.

  • +1

    There have been a number of posts here saying there's no such thing as a dummy account, you have to have ID to open a bank account in this country. That is true. But it doesn't have to be YOUR ID. The same identity theft used to transfer money out of other peoples accounts is used to create the dummy accounts that the money is transferred to. How is a bank, or any other organisation, responsible if your ID is stolen, unless it was stolen by their negligence?

    If your bank is required to compensate you for any theft it will just make people more careless. And will create fake thefts. People will claim their money was stolen, when they co-operated or connived in what happened.

    That said, there are obvious things that banks could do, and be required to do. For example fake invoices with other account's numbers on them are often used. Banks could be required to ensure the account name for a funds transfer matched the account name it was going into.

  • I'm curious as to how the transfer happened. Was it via internet banking? If so, her login credentials have been compromised. Or was it an over-the-counter transaction in that vanishingly small cohort known as a bank branch? The transferor would have to have been identified if so.
    NAB should have given a reason as to why they can't help. Usually if the transaction wasn't authorised by the victim, the banks will reinstate funds. It's only the frauds and scams where the transfers were authorised, even unwittingly, where they can't / won't help. I think there's more to this story.

  • When you are posting for a third party (ie. sister in law), often key details are missed out.

    You should suggest your sister lodges a written complaint with NAB. When you get the response (allow a month), it should have a lot more information.

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