Published: 01.05.2024
Updated: 01.05.2024
6 min read

HSBC banking scam victim Julie Khoo says home ownership dream shattered in minutes

‘I couldn’t look at myself. I was embarrassed and ashamed.’
HSBC customer Julie Khoo lost $50,000 to a scam, and is now in a fight to get the money back.

HSBC banking scam victim Julie Khoo says home ownership dream shattered in minutes

‘I couldn’t look at myself. I was embarrassed and ashamed.’

A Melbourne woman’s dream of home ownership has been reduced to rubble after she was the target of a sinister banking scam that undid years of diligent saving in just minutes.

Julie Khoo was at work in late October when she received the call that would change her life. Minutes later, $50,000 was siphoned from her bank account in two quick transactions.

The Victorian is among an ever-growing list of HSBC customers calling on the financial institution to improve its security measures and fighting to have their money returned after they fell victim to a cruel game of deception that has cost them millions of dollars collectively.

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The bitter blow was delivered just three months after the death of Khoo’s father and began when the caller told her they were from her bank’s fraud team, warning her money was in danger.

The caller came armed with personal information that only a bank would know and spent time building a rapport with the long-time HSBC client before asking for passcodes to help stop the scammer in their tracks. She was told the fraud was “happening right now” and she had to act quickly.

Khoo said it “all happened so fast” but she “snapped out of it”, realising something was wrong, when the caller asked for her credit card details.

She contacted her bank shortly after, hopeful the institution she has been with for more than 10 years would be able to block the transfers and guide her next step.

“I knew that the money left my account but I didn’t know it was gone. I truly believed that they (the bank) could claw back the funds,” she told 7NEWS.com.au.

“They told me they would look into it, to go into the branch the next day (it was already 4pm), and to report to the police.

“This was put together by myself from the three separate calls on the day. Not one call gave me the entire playbook of what to do as a victim.

“When I told the branch manager I was going to make a police report he indicated that it wasn’t necessary, but I did it anyway.”

HSBC customer Julie Khoo lost $50,000 to a scam, and is now in a fight to get the money back.
HSBC customer Julie Khoo lost $50,000 to a scam, and is now in a fight to get the money back. Credit: Supplied

Six months on, she said the bank has only updated her twice through email, meaning the wait for answers and the return of her money goes on.

Khoo had been saving a deposit for a new home. It’s a dream she has been building towards realising ever since she migrated to Australia from Malaysia for a better life in 2017.

That now feels a world away, and she has been left rattled.

“I screen all my calls now — my confidence is shattered,” she said.

“I couldn’t look at myself. I was embarrassed and ashamed at what had happened.”

Adding to her trauma, the scam unfolded just three months after the death of her father.

“I’m just trying to get by. The $50,000 was part of my savings towards my new home. Now I have to start again,” she said.

A screenshot of a spoof text sent to Julie Khoo in the weeks after she was scammed $50,000.
A screenshot of a spoof text sent to Julie Khoo in the weeks after she was scammed $50,000. Credit: Supplied

Khoo’s story is not an isolated one. About 70 “angry and disappointed” customers have joined the HSBC Australia Scam Victims Facebook page in recent months to talk through their own experiences and look at what they can do, and the rort has become such a problem that the federal government-backed Scamwatch even issued an HSBC-specific alert about it.

7NEWS.com.au revealed in February how the group was challenging the bank to recover their stolen money after they had united through social media.

Individuals from across the country have lost between $50,000 and $130,000 each since April 2023 and the group’s losses are now understood to total more than $3 million.

Most have been targeted by a “spoofing” scam, where calls and texts appear genuine because they come from legitimate numbers used by the bank. In many cases, SMS messages have appeared in the same thread as genuine texts from HSBC.

Sydney man Gerald Chin shared in December how his plans to take his parents on a surprise overseas holiday were dashed after he received an innocuous text from the bank that led him down a path to losing $49,000.

“What infuriated me was that there weren’t any transaction notifications (from the bank) sent to my mobile or email which could have prompted me to act quicker, considering it’s a fairly large amount of money,” he said.

HSBC has recently taken several specific steps to address fraud and beefed up its digital security team.
HSBC has recently taken several specific steps to address fraud and beefed up its digital security team. Credit: Getty Images

A new snapshot released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) at the weekend revealed Australians reported scam losses of $2.74 billion in 2023.

The figure is a 13.1 per cent decline on the previous 12 months, however, advocates argue the true devastation of these crimes is much higher because not all victims report a scam.

Many avoid doing so because they trust the bank will be able to recoup their money, there is shame tied to being hustled, and some simply don’t know what to do.

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan spoke on the HSBC issue in March when she called on the government to follow the likes of New Zealand by introducing a mandatory reimbursement scheme to protect “blameless scam victims”.

She also said something had to be done to ensure scammers can no longer impersonate the telephone numbers of legitimate businesses and agencies, particularly banks.

“The Australian Communication and Media Authority is implementing a voluntary SMS sender ID registry. I feel this registry has to be mandatory for organisations that use SMS sender IDs,” she said.

7NEWS.com.au has been told some HSBC customers who lost up to $50,000 have only had between $1 and $100 recovered. Goodwill payment offers have ranged between $100 and $5000.

Khoo said a reimbursement scheme would protect customers and encourage banks to improve security.

“In our cases, HSBC would more than likely have implemented processing delays on new payees sooner,” she said.

“Mandatory reimbursements would be a catalyst for banks to act, to protect customers because they are motivated to do so.

“People will say consumers need to be on the ball, but it should not rest entirely on the shoulders of consumers.”

HSBC’s response

HSBC said it has recently taken several specific steps to address fraud, including beefing up its scam and fraud team with 70 additional staff, working with telcos and regulators to prevent spoofing scams, increasing SMS alerts for every payment over $500, and placing bank numbers on a “do not originate” list to reduce impersonation calls.

The bank has also blocked some payments to high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges and overseas destinations, joined ACMA’s Sender ID registry and streamlined alpha tags.

“We understand being a victim of a scam is a stressful and distressing situation and we remain focused on doing everything we can to protect our customers,” HSBC Australia’s head of wealth and personal banking Jessica Power told 7NEWS.com.au.

“We are working on investigating each case of fraud thoroughly, while simultaneously trying to recover the stolen funds.

“We work with customers to update them throughout where we can and offer hardship assistance for those that need it.

“The fraud and scams landscape is rapidly evolving and becoming more sophisticated.

“Every industry, telco, and government across the world must work together with customers to remain vigilant to prevent scammers.

“We have continuously invested in our fraud and scam prevention, detection, and response, including implementing new processes to address the issue.”

‘Not good enough’

For many the changes are too late to protect them, and Khoo argues HSBC has been caught out, “falling behind what’s deemed as best practice” for too long.

“Scammers targeted HSBC customers for a year because they could get away with it, and it’s HSBC’s inaction that allowed it to continue,” she said.

“This is not good enough.”

Last year was a record year for complaints against banks, with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority receiving more than 100,000 reports.

Scam-related complaints nearly doubled between 2022 and 2023.

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