Russians Con Westpac Customers

Westpac’s vision is to be clearly recognised by their customers, employees, investors and the community as a global leader. Internet scams which take advantage of the trust placed on the Westpac bank by millions of customers can be damaging indeed to the bank. Here is the recent story of how Russians con Westpac customers.

Financial institutions like Westpac have always been subject to attempts by criminals to try and defraud money from the institution and their customers. These attempts of defraud can be done through various methods e.g. credit card fraud, telephone banking and also Internet scams.

There are two very common examples of Internet scams as listed below:

• Scammers will attempt to steal a customer’s login details by sending out emails which appear to be from a financial institution, and request personal details e.g. customer number and password.
• They create a website, which looks similar to a financial institution’s, but is in fact a ‘ghost website’ capturing the customer’s details, which may then be used to transact on the customer’s account.

It has been revealed lately a scam website has tricked at least 50 Westpac customers into disclosing their account passwords and PINs. TheseRussians con Westpac customers by posing as an authoritative website, complete with Westpac logos and images.

Today where there is lot of transactions done online this scam where the Russians conned Westpac customers has shaken the trust of many. The website bombarded thousands of email accounts with a message featuring Westpac symbols which asked account holders to click on a web link to complete a “quick identity check”.

Investigation against Russians conning Westpac customers

The scam has been well investigated by the Australian authorities and has obtained evidence against the Russians. A source at the bank told the Herald Sun that the website domain name had been registered through a Moscow business well known to Australian banks and international law enforcement agencies.

The false emails sent to Westpac customers were from a web domain known as https://akamai.net. This domain is already registered as a scam operation with Russian Internet authorities. It was surprising to have a scam running even after the business had been exposed by the Russians.

These Russians con Westpac customers through this scam by asking their passwords and registration details. Westpac’s David Lording said the bank has taken all the necessary steps and was working with police to close down the website. Westpac is also using software to identify customers who clicked on the web link and gave away account details helping to determine the amount of damage.