$55,000 scam almost cost man his house

A Dunedin man who was able to recover $55,000 he’d transferred to scammers says he probably would have had to sell his house if he didn’t get the money back.

The man, who doesn’t want to be named, received a call from scammers earlier this week pretending to be from Spark, telling him hackers were using his internet to launder money.

The scammers told him they were working with Interpol and wanted his help.

The 55-year-old victim said he didn’t suspect he was being scammed because the lie was so “sophisticated and realistic”.

The scammers were able to access his bank account and move money around so that it looked as though they had deposited money in his account. They asked him to go the bank and transfer it to an account in Hong Kong so they could trace the hackers. The scammers warned him not to log back into his bank account, and that they believed someone at his bank was part of the hackers’ organisation. After transferring the money, the man decided to check his bank account. It was then that he realised his own money had been taken.

He called Spark, waiting anxiously to check whether the callers had been legitimate. They told him it wasn’t and that he should call his bank immediately.

Thankfully, the man’s bank kept international transfers in a queue, so his payment had not gone through. The man had payments to meet for kitchen renovations and mortgage, and owed money to IRD. “I probably would have had to sell our property,” he said.