Credit card scammer captured on call, Westpac bank reacts

Westpac says a scam call captured in a customer recording shows how sophisticated and plausible some bank impersonation scams are.

“A smooth and urbane caller purporting to be from the Westpac Credit Card Fraud team rang the customer recently and said their card had been used in several overseas transactions,” the bank said.

The scammer claimed a credit card had been used inappropriately, mentioned popular websites the customer might have interacted with and even gave advice on avoiding scams.

The scammer then requested the customer’s credit card number to “cancel” the card.

As with many scams, the con artist attempt to instil a sense of urgency about the matter.

Westpac financial crime intelligence manager Jessica Channing said the bank would never ask for a credit card number to cancel a payment.

Channing said the “confirmation text” requested was part of the scam.

“The scammer is trying to get the card number out of the customer and if they got it, they would then immediately make an online purchase using the card,” Channing said.

She said there is no such thing as a “cancellation code” and Westpac would never send one to a customer and ask them to read it back.

Channing said the customer in this case did the right thing by refusing to give any numbers and the scammer gave up soon after that.

“Scammers can be very convincing and this customer did extremely well to resist and refuse to read anything out. And with his quick thinking, his recording of the conversation is going to help others as well.

Channing said scammers were getting harder to spot.

“You should be really suspicious of receiving any unsolicited call purporting to be from a bank,” she says.

“The best course of action is to hang up and call your bank back on their official phone number listed on their website.

“If we do have to call you, we won’t be offended if you say ‘Sorry, I’m going to follow best practice and hang up and call you back myself’.”

Channing said extra vigilance was required as the holiday season approached.

“People are stressed and busy and they’re shopping a lot and using courier services – presenting scammers with opportunities.”

The bank had noticed an increase in phishing scams, online marketplace scams, and parcel delivery text message scams, Channing said.