When Jamie*, a NAB business customer, received a text from Lisa*, his EA, asking him about the weather in Darwin, he knew something wasn't quite right.
Jamie picked up his mobile and gave Lisa a call right away.
"I run and own my own business in Western Australia, so I do a fair bit of travelling," Jamie told NAB News.
"But I wasn't in Darwin, I haven't been to Darwin in months.
"I was at home in Busselton.
"When I called Lisa, she explained she had received a call from someone saying they were from NAB, apparently my business credit card had been used in Darwin and had been blocked."
Spotting the red flags
The caller told Lisa they needed the business's NAB Connect details to remove the block. That was the first red flag for Jamie.
The caller said they couldn't give Lisa any account information. Another red flag.
They also wouldn't provide Lisa the name of the NAB business banker she and Jamie worked with. A third red flag.
Jamie, who had been a scam victim a few years earlier, spotted these red flags almost right away and called his NAB Business Banker, Risma Price, using the number he had for her on file.
"I could tell something was up, so I called Risma and asked if she could validate the caller or confirm if my cards had been blocked," Jamie said.
"A few years back I fell victim to an invoice scam. Thankfully the team at NAB were able to retrieve the cash I transferred but I'm now hyper alert to requests like this."
Doing all the right things
When Risma took the call, nothing Jamie was saying made sense to her.
"I couldn't see any alerts on their accounts, and there were no blocks on their credit cards," Risma said.
"I told Jamie to not give out any information to this person.
"Jamie and Lisa did all the right things by staying vigilant and spotting the red flags.
"If the scammers had managed to trick Jamie into handing over account access, they may have been able to access around $3 million in funds.
"This all unfolded in about 20 minutes, highlighting the importance of staying alert to scammers and acting quickly."
Taking action
NAB Executive Group Investigations and former Australian Federal Police executive Chris Sheehan said as we head towards end of financial year, time pressures are further exacerbated for businesses, creating an environment ripe for scammers.
"One of the top scams we see targeting business around this period is phishing scams impersonating the Australian Tax Office," Mr Sheehan said.
"The ATO received 22,000 reports of scams impersonating the government department in the past 12 months. Reports increased 34% between March and April this year.
"Other key scams targeting businesses include false billing, impersonation and investment scams, which sophisticated criminals frequently use to target businesses of all types and sizes."
According to new NAB Economics insights Aussies say they're more scam savvy than this time last year, with 70% ignoring suspicious calls and deleting questionable looking emails.
"This is encouraging to see, but there's still more to do," Mr Sheehan said.
"We're focused every day on protecting customers against scams so we can stop the crime. We've seen customer losses decrease between October and December 2023, compared to the same period in 2022, despite customer scam reports increasing over that time.
"We can, and will, do more but it's pleasing to see we're making an impact as a bank, and as a community."
What NAB is doing to stop scammers
NAB has a comprehensive bank-wide strategy in place to reduce the impact of scams and fraud, including:
- Stopping the use of links in unexpected text messages to customers.
- Introducing behavioural biometrics to NAB Connect.
- Working with telcos to make it harder for criminals to impersonate NAB.
- Introducing real time payment alerts to mobile and internet banking.
Top tips business customers can take to protect themselves from impersonation scams:
- Know your money is safe in your account. Once you move your money to another account, you lose control of it, and it can be very difficult for your bank to recover it for you. Never be pressured to move your money.
- Check out nab.com.au/security to see the latest scams and cyber threats.
- NAB offers free security education webinars for all Australians. Visit the NAB website to sign up for one today.
