It began with a text message on Thursday afternoon that, at first glance, looked convincing enough.

The message claimed to be from ANZ and said a direct debit payment to Qantas Pay for $1,318 had been set up successfully and was scheduled to leave my account.

“If this was not you, please reply N and contact us immediately,” it read, followed by a Melbourne phone number.

Looking back now, there were obvious warning signs. The message came from a +44 number — the country code for the United Kingdom — whereas genuine ANZ messages normally appear under an ANZ sender ID.

I’d received plenty of scam texts before and usually ignored them, but as an ANZ customer with a dormant Qantas Pay account, this one sounded just credible enough that I took the bait.

The truth is, I was rushing. I was juggling several issues at once and trying to meet publishing deadlines, and my attitude at the time was simply: “Just deal with this quickly and get it fixed.”

That probably made me more vulnerable than I realised.

What should also have raised alarm bells was how quickly the call was answered. Within seconds, I was speaking to somebody, with no waiting time, no automated menus and no hold music.

The man identified himself as “Jason” working in the ANZ Falcon security team.  

I genuinely believed him

“Jason” spoke confidently about fraud investigations and ANZ security procedures.  He explained that my account may have been compromised and suggested scammers often test stolen bank details with small transactions before attempting larger thefts.

He asked whether I had shared passwords, account numbers or security information with anyone.

At one point, I challenged him and asked why he had not asked me any security questions to verify my identity.

“I don’t need to,” he replied smoothly. “I can already see your accounts and what’s happening, but, just to be safe, I will send you an email with my ANZ ID to verify everything”

That answer alone should probably have ended the conversation, but instead he redirected my attention, asking me to check my accounts while he “investigated”.

He then asked for time to do that and promised to call me back within 10 minutes.

The uncomfortable truth is that I genuinely believed I was dealing with somebody trying to protect my account.

Part of what caught me off guard was that the caller did not sound like the stereotype many of us might assume a scammer might sound like. He sounded polished and educated, with  a refined English accent.

The strange irony was that when I finally got through to the real ANZ fraud team, the genuine staff member sounded less like the “banker” in my head than the scammer did.

That probably says more about my own flawed assumptions than anything else.

The moment the story unravelled

After calling me back, the man claimed ANZ believed my identity had been compromised and that the bank would need to move my money into a new “secure encrypted account” while investigations took place.

He spun an incredibly convincing story, explaining the temporary account would not initially be in my name because scammers supposedly already had my identity details. 

He also claimed all direct debits and scheduled payments would continue working normally and that I would simply need to update payment details over the next 90 days.

Then he read out the “encrypted” account identification; ADE SH SIN1G7H4,  instructing me to transfer my funds into the new account.

And unbelievably, in my rush to get it sorted, I actually started doing it.

I entered the details into the transfer field, but it would not work.  When I told him that, he quickly replied: “Oh, you weren’t listening properly, I explained before, you will need to remove all the spaces and numbers.”

And suddenly the fog lifted.

Without the extra characters and spaces, I realised I was not transferring money into an encrypted ANZ security account at all.

I was transferring money to a person by the name of Adesh Singh.

Even the fake looked genuine

Earlier in the conversation, when I had started expressing doubts, “Jason” had offered to “prove” he worked for ANZ.

He asked for an alternative email address because, he claimed, my primary email may already have been compromised.

He then sent through what appeared to be an official ANZ security letter containing his supposed employee details and identification.

At first glance, it looked genuine. The formatting, language and branding all at first glance appeared real.

The only obvious clue was a small formatting mistake in his surname — a lowercase letter that looked unprofessional.

That tiny detail became another reminder that scammers no longer need perfection. They only need somebody to believe them for long enough.

The real bank officer delivered the sobering truth

The email sent by the scammer, purporting to verify his credentials as a member of the ANZ security team

After hanging up, I immediately contacted the actual ANZ fraud and security team.

Eventually, after waiting on hold for about 10 minutes, I got through to a genuine security officer who told me scams like this are now happening constantly and that hundreds of Australians are being caught every day.

He said many of the operations are now run out of places including the United Kingdom, using highly trained call centre-style scammers skilled at manipulating people into authorising transfers themselves.

But the most frightening part was this: if customers willingly transfer the money themselves, even under deception, there is often little or no chance of recovering it because technically the customer authorised the transfer.

Once the money disappears into multiple accounts and overseas networks, it can be gone within minutes.

That reality hit hard because I had come so close to becoming one of those victims.

Why I’m sharing this story

I’m not sharing this story because I’m proud of it. In fact, I’m deeply embarrassed by how foolish I was in ignoring the obvious triggers.

That’s not something I particularly enjoy admitting publicly, but it is an important reminder that modern scams are increasingly sophisticated and that trust can be manipulated in ways many of us do not fully appreciate until it happens to us.

It’s easy to assume only elderly or less tech-savvy people fall victim to scams like this.  After this experience, I can certainly vouch that’s not the case.

These scammers are fox-cunning and extremely good at manipulating human psychology.

In hindsight, the warning signs were obvious — the overseas number, the unsolicited text message, the request to transfer money (why would a bank do that?) and the refusal to properly verify my identity.

But for several dangerous minutes, I believed him.

An IT expert I’ve since spoken to said his best advice is never phone a number sent in a text message or take calls from unknown numbers.

“Always contact a bank by using their official channels – either the number on the back of your card or the official website,” he said.

“And if you think it’s bad now, be very wary, because this will only get worse and the scammers more convincing with the help of AI.”