Call me naive, but a lot of scammers try and get your BSB and account number. Just how are they able to (legally, or actually) withdraw money from this account if that is all they have? Wouldn't they need to be able to at least log into my internet banking firstly?
I've never been able to figure that one out!! And NO, I'm not going to publish my BSB/account number for you to test it out, sorry!!! :-)
One step closer that they can prove that they're you maybe?
Like the people who phish for your details from your traditional mailbox.
no , to getting you to give them your money , they are scammers mostly.
They could sign a direct debit agreement to get some bills/subscriptions payed off.
Is it THAT simple? Geez…..!!
Yup
I would be interested in how you think that works? I'm pretty sure I would have to do that through either the branch or my internet banking system.
Nope, you can sign a direct debit agreement with a merchant which authorises them to take money out of an account. All you have to give them is a Name, BSB and Account Number. It is very common to pay bills this way (ie postpaid mobile, electricity, gas etc)
As long as people aren't checking their statements then they might get away with it for a little while. The only issue is that the scammers name and address are on the bill so tracking them down would probably fairly easy to do, until they do a runner. The mobile might be a tad different but you usually need good ID for getting a mobile phone.
@try2bhelpful: I'm sure that such a scam wouldn't be 100% easy to get away with. I'm just saying its possible. Imaging you illegally obtain access to someone else's credit card and log in. Sign up to a direct debit agreement from OP's bank account. Max out the credit card. Have the bill payed by OP, then max it out again. You've just doubled your stolen cash. Or do something similar with a hijacked Paypal account.
You could also rego a company, fake an agreement then just direct debit whatever amount you want. They can then just close the company. Used to happen more in early 2000's using ebay details. I used to go in to the banks and get them to list the authorised direct debitors.
One more reason why I dislike Direct Debit to death.
The other reason is that they can take their money willy nilly and we have to fight to recover the money in the event of overcharging instead of the other way around. Happens all the time.
if this happened, I would hold the bank accountable for this.
I heard about it on the ebay community forum 10+ years ago, before PayPal became a payment choice. An active seller would include their banking details in a winning email or even the product listing page and the scammer would use the seller's account details when ordering Chrisco Xmas hampers.
The seller letting the forum know only noticed it after the 3rd direct debit was made and Chrisco returned the funds. From memory, they didn't catch the scammer because the scammer had provided a false delivery address. Some surmised that the scammer would have changed the address just before Chrisco would start shipping hampers for Xmas.
surely they'd be caught 100% though?? You'd never be liable for such a loss would you??
Can they show up to a branch with fake ID in your name and your bsb/acc number and do a withdrawal?
Would be possible, but as you say they would need a lot more info than just BSB/account number. In any case, I would be protected by bank's fraud terms!
Most likely don't even need ID. I lost my card recently and had to go into a branch to withdrawal, gave the guy my BSB and ACC number, went to take out my ID but he just said not to bother and handed me the cash.
Woah! thats freaky
That is not good.
Wow that’s pretty bad
Which bank was it?
Anytime I’ve asked to get money out I always get asked for ID
Commonwealth. Full disclosure though, I do work in the same building and have been in a couple times before. Still not great though.
YOU ARE LYING.
This did not, has not, and never could happen.
(edit: I concede that it could happen if the person responsible broke about 20 regulations, but the person who did that would be INSTANTLY dismissed for doing so. If you're not full of shit, you MUST make a complaint that this was able to happen.)
Funny to read you claim so emphatically that it could not have possibly happened when, uh, it did. As I mentioned the guy probably recognised me because I've been in a couple of times before, not about to get him fired over it.
@Cheaplikethebird: You should. He is the only safeguard between you and and empty bank account.
(For the record I still don't believe you though)
I can provide a 2nd example. My daughter was interstate and urgently needed funds. I had no idea how I could help her (I think there are products these days, but I didn't know at the time.)
She went into a branch of my bank, and said "I need to withdraw money from my dad's account". I got a phone call for verification and gave verbal agreement, and after he hung up my daughter asked him to bump up the amount a bit and he gave her what she asked for.
@SlickMick: Did you complain? Fraud was committed. Criminal charges at worst, instant dismissal at a minimum. Taking your story with a grain of salt also - why would the teller risk THEIR ENTIRE CAREER to do this?
Literally - blacklisted from working for a bank for life if caught doing this. Why would they risk that?
@John Kimble: How not? At the very least, obtain financial advantage by deception (ie, having you agree to one amount, then withdrawing another.)
@picklewizard: Oh, sorry I didn't read properly, I thought we were still talking about the first dodgy bank employee, my apologies.
@picklewizard:
What financial advantage did he get?
Yeah I totally agree, why would he, when there's nothing in it for him, but I presume you're right that I could have made an issue of it and got him in a lot of trouble.
The reasons I can think of are compassion, being unable to say no to a beautiful young girl ….
I just put it down to a miracle. My daughter was stuck in a tough spot, and was delivered from it.
Complain? No. Very satisfied customer here. I hope he's been very successful in his career.
edit :ps. I didn't expect you to believe it. But that's 2 strikes on your faith. You might need to work on that :)
@SlickMick: Maybe I've got too much faith in the basic ability of someone to do their job; but this is "Working in a Bank 101" stuff they're contravening here, and I'd like to think the average bank worker is more competent than a supermarket worker where there's much less regulation, security and scrutiny.
@picklewizard:
Yeah, but then my daughter wouldn't have got her visa, missed her scholarship opportunity, and basically have been a bit of a disaster for us. So I'm really glad he was there, and I'm really glad that compassion trumps regulation etc.
@SlickMick: Your story doesn't add up…
You say they called for permission, you authorised $x, she got off the call, asked him to bump it up to $y which he did.
Why wouldn't she have just asked for everything she needed if that's what was hinging on it?
You also say she was interstate… you don't need a visa for interstate travel. Where's the visa come into this? And how much was the amount that it had such a profound impact on her life? There's a lot of holes in your story. Are you sure it happened?
@picklewizard:
It's a story not a maths equation :)
Yeah, so my daughter got lunch as well as her visa. Some might consider that part irrelevant. I thought it was a nice little extra. To you apparently it blows the whole story out of the water!!??
She was in Sydney getting a US visa. It was a few hundred dollars, which gave her the opportunity to play basketball for some elite US colleges. Might not be a big deal to you, but it was to us.
There's no holes in the story - true stories stand up to scrutiny regardless of your level of suspicion or mistrust. Some details have only been elaborated through inquisition, but keep going, I might decide to write a novel about it.
There's a lot of holes in your deductive techniques though, and it seems your trust of fellow humans is in shreds.
@SlickMick: …so if she didn't get that extra money, she would have spent her visa money on lunch, and never gotten the visa? Is that what you're saying?
@picklewizard:
No. I thought the big deal was that the bank gave her money based only on a phone call.
The fact that they gave her even more than agreed on the phone was just the icing on the cake.
If they had given her the amount she originally asked for (just enough for the visa) she would have gotten the visa and gone hungry for the day.
I expected the bank to say no, they can't give her some money from her dad's account.
I have never had such service despite going to the same branch for years.
When I tried to deposit money without my Bank card once I had to provide, name, address, DOB and security password.
Pretty sure similar things are possible in Australia:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/jan/07/personalfinanc…
Whether or not you can get your money back makes no difference to scammers that have already withdrawn it in cash.
You need bit more than BSB and A/N to do something dodgy. Perfectly safe to give away your BSB - A/N information. Business do that all the time, giving clients their BSB and A/N. Stop freaking out people for no reason. move along.
As mentioned before, whilst it is safe it is the beginning to something more sinister.
You wouldn't give away your username because thats one less item the baddies need.
As I said, you need more information than that. Usually scammers ask for A/N to gain some trust, thinking they going to deposit my $1,000,000,000.01 from my missing inheritance.
Im just guessing. Maybe they target people with enough info on a social media account? i.e. mobile number, email, dob, full name, bsb and account, address (this is easily obtained off whitepages). That's alot of information for just another guy on the other end of the line that may or may not care about security as much. Who knows !
I remember once Jeremy Clarkson made the claim that the numbers were useless and published his account details in his newspaper column. Someone used them to donate some money from his account to charity, so it must be do-able in the UK at least!
Register for PayID and you'll never have to give out your Bank BSB or Account number.
As has been said above, you can setup direct debit with just a BSB + Account + Name with some merchants.
I have done this in the past (before I got into using paypal and amex for everything).
I've probably had this scam attempted on me a few times on gumtree. On a few occasions, a buyer has wanted me to post something to them, asked for my bank account number. I'd reply with my bank account details, ask for the postage address, say "I'm not sending it out until I see the funds clear" and then not hear back from them again.
Nothing's ever come of it though (I look over all my accounts 1x / month).
We used to deposit our rent into an LJ Hooker business account. They provided that in 2008 when we picked up the keys and signed the lease.
Simple case of address + "rent" as payment reference.
A few years later, they wrote to advise they were changing their bank. They would not be offering their new account details, and we were offered a rental card (underwritten by some dodgy payment agency, complete with their brochure enclosed). A much less prominent method was for us to give them our details for direct-debit. We'd been singed by that BS some years prior, so that wasn't on.
I insisted on their new account details, arguing theirs is a business account and they must assume an acceptable degree of risk in conducting a business. In addition to the reality that many companies had been hacked and I had no assurance or knowledge of their IT security.
Otherwise they'd have to comply with state law and provide a penalty-free method of payment.
They continued to refuse and could only offer direct-debit or bank cheque in compliance of state law. Thankfully, ING bank cheques were free, so I mailed them one each fortnight. Boy did that annoy them!
My real estate uses one of those intermediaries - reconnect. 9 bucks a quarter for the privilege. Such BS.
Considered mailing them cheques but… Ill channel my sense of injustice into something more productive…
Are ING Bank Cheques still free?
How long does it take to arrive?
Just confirmed, and yes they're still free. Registered post is the default method and takes about a week. Express is extra of course.
Haven't drawn one since late 2011.
they can't its only the first step in the scam.