- Sarah Robinson, 39, from Gold Coast, Qld fell victim to a cruel house deposit scam
- A scammer masquerading as a fake lawyer tricked Sarah into transferring her house deposit to the wrong account
- The bank recovered some cash, but Sarah and her family are still out of pocket nearly $170,000
Here Sarah tells her story in her own words.
Smoothing the big red Sold sticker over the For sale sign, I stepped back and smiled.
‘We did it,’ I grinned to my two youngest kids, Coby, then 11, and Lucy, eight. My husband Laine, then 44, was at work and our eldest Jett, 14, was at home playing basketball.
After years of saving, we’d finally found the perfect spot to call home.
We’d purchased our first place in Tweed Heads, NSW, shortly after tying the knot in 2014.
But wanting a change of scenery, we relocated further south to Newcastle, in 2021.
However, after just over two years, we realised how much we missed our families, and headed to sunny Queensland in June 2023, where we rented a place on the Gold Coast.
We dreamed of buying a place with a big backyard so the kids could run around, and we could host get-togethers for our extended family and friends.
For 18 months we spent every weekend attending open homes and even made a few offers, but we kept missing out to other buyers.
So we hired a buyer’s agent to help us find the perfect pad.
In August 2024 he took us to inspect a property in Mount Nathan.
It was a traditional family home on 1.3 acres with breathtaking views of the Gold Coast hinterland.
I could visualise the kids running around outside and kicking a footy after school.
‘It’s perfect,’ Laine and I both agreed.
That night, we formally emailed our offer of $1.3 million to our agent.
When it was accepted by the owner, we signed the contract and paid a five per cent deposit to the agent, equalling $65,000.
‘Can you believe it?’ we rejoiced as we popped a bottle of champagne.
It was time to start looking forward to our new chapter as a family.
Right away, we began packing boxes and getting ready for the big move.
We also went to place our Sold sticker on the sign at the new house, and shared the photos with our family and friends.
A few days later I received an email from our conveyancing solicitor who we’d hired to help with the legal aspect of buying a house.
Sarah and Laine, you’ve paid part of your deposit. We need the next payment of $252,063 transferred into our account a week before the settlement, the email read.
‘Sarah, it’s all a scam. It’s not real,’ Laine fretted.
The figure covered the cost of stamp duty and other fees associated with purchasing a property.
I was so busy with my work as a nurse and looking after the three kids, I didn’t get around to it straight away.
Two days later, they emailed again to follow up.
You can pay us in small instalments if you’d prefer, they said, encouraging us to send the money as soon as possible.
I didn’t feel safe using online banking, so the following day I went to my local bank branch.
After providing the bank teller the conveyancer’s account information from the email on my phone, he made the transaction on the spot.
I received a receipt from the conveyancer the next day, as proof the outstanding amount had been received.
Now, all that was left to do was finish packing.
But the day before our settlement in September 2024, everything came crashing down when Laine called me in a panic while I was at work.
‘The conveyancers can’t find the deposit,’ he said, concerned.
‘I paid it already,’ I replied, confused.
Hanging up the phone, I forwarded Laine the emails confirming the transaction, sure there’d been some kind of misunderstanding.
When he called me back 20 minutes later, after speaking with the conveyancer, he was beside himself.
‘Sarah, it’s all a scam. It’s not real,’ he fretted.
His words made my stomach drop.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, a hard lump forming in my throat.
As I listened in shock, Laine explained that we’d been victims of a sophisticated ‘spear phishing’ attack. It’s a type of scam where emails or messages are sent purportedly from a known or trusted sender, to make the targeted individuals reveal confidential information.
After initially making contact with our conveyancer, hackers had somehow gained access to our private details. They’d seen we were in the middle of purchasing a house and posed as an employee from the conveyancing company to send me fraudulent emails.
They knew our names, the address of the property, and the amount of money we owed, almost down to the cent.
There had been no red flags such as typos or grammatical errors that might have indicated it was a scam. They even used the same company logos on all correspondence.
The only thing that gave it away was that the email address was missing the ‘.au’ at the end, which Laine picked up after speaking with our real conveyancer. I felt like such an idiot. A fake conveyancing lawyer had stolen our life savings.
Feeling sick at the news, bile rose up in my throat and I broke down. But wiping my tears I had to hold myself together until the end of my shift.
Back home, Laine and I cried endless tears.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I sobbed to him as he cradled me.
We contacted the police and the bank, ANZ, who discovered our money had been transferred to an account owned by a university student in Victoria.
The bank was able to recover $82,424 of our stolen cash, as it hadn’t yet been transferred out of the student’s bank account.
But the rest of the money had been dispersed among seven others, who are all known to police.
That afternoon, we sat the kids down to break the terrible news.
‘We’ve lost hope of seeing our money.’
‘There’s bad guys online. They’re not just outside in the real world, but also on the computer,’ I said, explaining we wouldn’t be moving to our dream home after all.
The children were heartbroken and I felt so guilty.
‘I’ve destroyed our family’s dreams,’ I said, breaking down.
‘The sun’s still shining, and we have our health,’ Laine comforted me.
Four days later, on the advice of our lawyer, we cancelled the contract for the house. By law the seller could have kept the $65,000 deposit we’d paid, but thankfully he was sympathetic.
We had to find another rental as the place we were living in had been sold.
Five months on from our nightmare ordeal, no arrests have been made despite the uni student cooperating with police, and we’ve lost hope of ever seeing our money again. We’re holding on to the money we have to buy something cheaper down the line, but we’re back to scrimping and saving – me as a nurse and Laine in his construction business.
We’re still $169,639 out of pocket – money that took Laine and me our entire 16-year relationship to painstakingly save.
While I’ve been seeing a psychologist to help me through, I’m still baffled by the situation. Even though we’re the victims, it feels like we’re at fault.
And though we’re still utterly devastated by what has happened, we’re so thankful we have each other – my darling Laine, 45, and our beautiful kids, Jett, now 15, Coby, 12, and Lucy, nine.
We’re sharing our story so others know that scams can happen to anyone.
It’s more important than ever to know the warning signs.
Tips on avoiding scams:
STOP
Scammers like to create a false sense of urgency to rope in their victims to act fast and fall for their trap. Before replying or clicking on links and attachments, or sending through money, it’s critical to stop and search for any warning signs. Is the email address different? Are there typos? Are they asking for bank account details?
CHECK
If your bank or another official has sent you an email asking for you to do something or share information with them, it’s important to call up and confirm if the email, text or link is legitimate. Even though it’s extra steps and it takes a bit of time, it could save you a whole lot of money down the line.
PROTECT
It’s always best to manually type out the url of a website rather than clicking the link in an email or text message. Why? Because the link could be a phishing hack! Take your time before acting and stay protected.
If you think you’ve been scammed, report it to SCAMWATCH on 1300 792 958
ANZ SAYS:
The ways in which criminals scam and defraud customers is sophisticated and evolving. This includes business email compromise scams, where cybercriminals impersonate a person working for a company to convince a customer to send funds to an account controlled by the criminal.
We always try to recover funds customers have lost to scams or fraud. However, this depends on factors including how quickly it is reported to us, whether they are transferred to another financial institution, and the speed in which funds are then on-transferred by scammers. In many cases, cybercriminals on-transfer funds in minutes, or use them to buy cryptocurrency.
ANZ has measures in place to help detect and protect customers from fraud and scams, and continually reviews our capabilities as new fraud and scams emerge.
