Devastated couple John and Julie fell victim to a sophisticated identity scam and lost over $370,000 (around £290.000).
The semi-retired couple, who requested to keep their surname private, had their money stolen whilst overseas.
They spoke on ABC Radio Melbourne about their situation, in an attempt to warn others about the fraudster’s tactics.
Before their family holiday, Julie discovered John’s phone was on “SOS”.
John had become a victim of ‘porting’ as someone had gained control of his identity by having his mobile number ported to another device.
After alerting their banks to the situation, they thought they were safe to go on their holiday, however by the time they got home, fraudsters had drained their bank accounts.
They had taken at least $325,000 (around £254,000), sold $45,000 (around £25,000) worth of their shares, and created 20 credit and debit accounts in their names.
Whilst on holiday, they noticed some money was missing but they were unaware of the extent.
They contacted their banks however they told the pair they would need to go to a branch to confirm their identity which they couldn’t do overseas.
Julie added: “We probably would have come home if we weren’t meeting our family — it was a trip we had planned for years to meet all their kids and their partners.”
It wasn’t until they got back that they realised the true extent of the crime.
Some of the accounts were overdrawn by more than $10,000 (around £8,000).
And as part of their tactics, the fraudsters had ported their phones and accessed John’s email account, messaging friends, family, and work clients in an effort to pull others into their web.
In distress, Julie said: “It’s had a huge effect on our mental health.
“I’ve never in my life had anxiety, but ever since, I feel like I’ve been living in this hyper-vigilant state.
“You just think there’s no hope of getting out of this.”
John and Julie have only gotten part of the money back due to different fraud procedures that each bank has.
John said: “They would toss between the fraud division and scams — so they would be going back and forth with that and absolutely nothing was achieved.”
