Hume Bank customers tell of being hit by scammer draining money

Albury police are probing the fraud which saw mobile phones put into SOS mode by cyber criminals who then transferred money out.

A couple, who run a business, were left feeling helpless as the husband's account was hit at 8 o'clock one night last month after he received an email from Hume saying his details had been updated, despite him having not contacted the bank.

His wife said they called a Hume hotline.

"We begged them to help us and they said 'there's nothing they can do to help us, they only do cards' and the whole time we were watching the money go out of the account," she said.

"We were hung out to dry."

The husband said it later emerged a scammer had called the bank asking for his account number and had been provided it after the call taker was satisfied the hacker was legitimate.

"They shouldn't be giving customer numbers out over the phone," he said.

Another business operator, who knows the couple, was stung in similar fashion this week and it was only through them providing a number for a Hume manager he did not have all money in an account drained.

"I could have been destitute," he said.

"Hume should probably have some procedure that customers can freeze their accounts immediately and have an after-hours, 24-hour, 365-day a year call centre for people who think they're getting money fraudulently taken out of accounts."

Fortunately the victims kept some money through their quick thinking, but they wanted the public to know of the scam and Hume to recoup their losses.

A Hume spokesperson responded "we understand the devastating impact being the victim of a scam can have".

"We're aware of a recent phone porting scam in the community," he said.

"In this instance perpetrators gain control of an individual's identity by having their phone number ported to another device, giving access to personal information which unfortunately can create the opportunity for access to financial information."

Hume is doing a review.

"We have a number of services available to our customers 24 hours a day and we are continuously improving this offering," the spokesperson said.

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