SCAM SPOT: What’s trending?

James Thornhill
09:00am February 20 2025

Scam losses are easing, but Westpac experts urge customers to remain vigilant. 

Customer scam losses in January were the lowest for any month in five years, showing the impact of new safety features and growing public awareness around the risks.

However, scam activity remains high and the bank continues to see customers proceed with payments to scammers even when informed that the transaction they’re about to make could present risk. 

Investment scams are still the biggest scam type in terms of financial loss, accounting for more than a third of gross losses to scams so far this financial year. 

In one recent case, a customer found themselves more than $100,000 out of pocket after investing in what they thought was a term deposit with a major financial institution. They were persuaded to make the investment after engaging online with a scammer disguising themselves as a financial adviser. On transferring the money the customer found they had no access to the institution’s platform to view their investment and make transactions. 

In another case, a customer was contacted via WhatsApp by someone claiming to be an overseas-based businessman. After several months of general business chat, the individual gained the customer’s trust and introduced them to a forex trading platform which promised high returns. After transferring money, the customer was given access to an online platform to view their ‘investment’ but has not been able to withdraw any funds. 

Scammers like to use forex or crypto exchanges as conduits for their activities because the transactions are hard to track, so it pays to be diligent when an investment requires the use of these platforms. 

Losses to business email compromise, or payment redirection scams, have reduced since the introduction of Westpac Verify. This feature alerts the customer to a potential account name mismatch (based on the history of other payments made from Westpac Group customers) when they’re adding a new payee using a BSB and account number. 

However, business email compromise is still the third biggest source of scam loss and Westpac continues to see people fall victim.

The scam typically involves a recipient receiving a legitimate looking email or invoice requesting a payment to new or updated account details. It could be that the scammer has hacked into the system of a supplier or conveyancer, intercepts an email requesting the payment of an invoice, and makes changes.

These scams are effective because they usually involve a request for payment that the target had expected to make. One common tactic is for the bad actor to impersonate a conveyancer requesting payment to settle a property purchase. In one recent example, a customer narrowly avoided losing $1.2 million. 

In addition to Verify, Westpac SaferPay alerts customers to potential scams by asking a series of questions which are presented for new payments detected to have high potential scam risk. If customer responses suggest the payment is highly likely to be a scam, Westpac will not allow the payment to be processed. 

The SafeCall feature is in the early stages of roll out and will further bolster Westpac’s scam prevention armoury. SafeCall aims to tackle bank impersonation scams by enabling customers to receive verified calls from the bank directly through the Westpac app. 
 

James Thornhill

James Thornhill was appointed as editor of Westpac Wire in May 2022. Prior to joining the bank, he was a business and financial journalist with more than two decades of experience with international newswires. Most recently, he was a resources correspondent for Bloomberg, covering the mining and energy sectors, and previously reported on a broad range of topics from economics and politics to currency and bond markets. Originally from the UK, he’s had stints working in London, New York and Singapore, but is now happily settled in Sydney.

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