Western Australian pensioner scammed out of 44 thousand dollars.
A Western Australian pensioner has been swindled out of $44,000 in a scam where a telephone caller pretended to be working for the West Australian Banking Association and offered a refund of thousands of dollars of overcharged bank fees. (It must be noted the Western Australia Banking Association is fictitious and does not exist)
The elderly man says he trusted the caller because they said the West Australian Banking Association was part of the government.
The caller claimed there was $6,600 waiting for the consumer to access if he just paid lawyer and processing fees.
The scammer got the pensioner to send money via Western Union wire transfer service.
After sending some payment of hundreds of dollars the amounts crept up to more than $2,000 transactions.
When the man wanted to back out the scammer threatened him with harm and made the man feel guilty about the process being so heavily underway and time wasted on it so far.
The scammer claimed to have found extra money owing to the man – possibly another 10,000 in overcharged bank fees.
The man was scared and thought he would get a payout at the end.
Over a period of about three and a half weeks he sent $44,320.
A Consumer Protection spokesperson said the scam caller had an Indian accent but the department had not found out where the criminal was based.
