“You make life better for a lot of people and you’ve made it better for me and my wife today.”
The entertainer sent $100,0000 by international money transfer through ANZ in March to a recipient account at St George.
He’d answered an online advertisement and been tricked into thinking he was investing the money in an AMP high-yield, global market fund promising a 4.94 per cent one-year return.
In fact, the investment scheme was a sophisticated scam run by overseas criminals.
The man realised he’d been conned 10 days after sending the money and immediately contacted ANZ and police.
However, the money was never recovered, the scammers have not been identified and the police investigation has been shelved.
Correspondence obtained by the Herald reveals that ANZ - which refused liability for the victim’s losses - wrote to St George on March 11, the day it was notified of the theft.
ANZ warned the $100,000 payment was “subject to scam” and requested “your risk fraud team to take possible steps to arrange for urgent recall and return the funds”.
Ten days later on March 21, St George confirmed it held “partial recovery” of the stolen money, but demanded indemnity from any financial risk before processing the repayment.
It took three weeks for ANZ to confirm it would indemnify St George against all “claims, actions, costs and expenses” for A$29,511.12 ($32,328), “being the available recoverable amount”.
More than seven weeks later, on May 31, ANZ sought an update from St George, asking “when ANZ can expect to receive the partial recovery” and how much was available.
And despite being on notice the money was subject to a fraud investigation, St George admitted two days later the money was gone.
“We do not hold any recovery for this payment as funds have been withdrawn.”
Dumbfounded, ANZ sought an immediate explanation from St George about why the money was no longer available.
And despite several attempts to get answers, St George failed to provide any further response.
ANZ told the Herald: “While St George bank initially indicated a partial recovery may be possible, they later advised there were no funds to recover. We asked St George to explain further but they haven’t replied yet.”
The Herald sent a detailed list of questions to St George, which merged with Westpac Banking Corporation in 2008.
The questions included:
*What steps St George took to recover the money after being alerted it was stolen and whether the bank had contacted police?
*How St George allowed AUS$30,000 of recovered money to be withdrawn, given it was on notice this was fraudulently obtained?
*Whether St George would now reimburse the victim and provide a formal apology?
A Westpac spokesman refused to answer most of the questions, citing “confidentiality obligations”, despite being provided a privacy waiver from the victim.
The spokesman said St George conducted a review following Herald inquiries, and would now refund the entertainer A$29,511.12.
He blamed a “one-off processing issue” which meant the recoverable funds were never returned to ANZ.
St George had since shut down the recipient account, but the spokesman refused to confirm whether the bank had provided the account holder’s details to police.
“St George Bank invests heavily in scam prevention and has robust processes in place to alert and protect customers. We work hard to recover money for customers where possible.”
There had been a spike in investment scams, often using false prospectuses or lucrative cryptocurrency offers to entice anyone seeking quick cash returns.
“We urge people to take extra care and remain wary of offers that appear too good to be true.”
Massey University banking expert, Associate Professor Claire Matthews, said she believed the case raised questions about St George’s procedures.
“It did seem odd to me that having first said there was money they’d put a hold on that they then said ‘We’ve lost it now’, which suggests there had been something wrong with their processes,” Matthews said.
“It’s good to see they’ve now come to the party and effectively said: ‘We’ve stuffed up. We said we had this money. It’s our fault you didn’t get this back, so here it is’.
“It’s taken some time, nearly 12 months, and it’s taken some media involvement, but it’s achieved the outcome.”
Matthews also questioned whether ANZ could have been more proactive, but noted ANZ was not responsible for the fraud and had tried to help its customer.
ANZ said it was pleased St George was now providing a partial return to the victim. ANZ would be seeking further explanation from St George.
“We always want to do better by our customers where we can and this means constantly reviewing our processes,” a spokesman said in a statement.
“While this is a good outcome for [the entertainer], a recovery of funds is not often the case. We urge customers to be aware of potential scammers, and to contact us immediately if they suspect they’ve been caught up in a scam.”
Police told the Herald they followed “all available lines of enquiry” before filing the case last year.
While transaction details were obtained from ANZ, police had not sought account holder information from St George to pursue the scammers, saying “we do not believe those enquiries would realistically be viable”.
