$1.6 Million Lost, Zero Accountability: harriet speaks out
Harriet’s parents’ home was a modest shack in a beachside country town - its oceanfront position meant it was worth millions when it sold in 2023, making Harriet a ‘lead’ for overseas cybercrime gangs to target.
It took one phone call for Harriet Spring to lose the proceeds of her mother's only asset — their south coast oceanfront family home.
Her parents’ modest home in a beachside country town was worth millons of dollars when it sold in 2023, thanks to Australia’s position as the second-most expensive property market in the world.
Scam Victim Alliance now knows that Australians’ confidential home-buying records are widely breached. This stolen information is then traded by professional cybercrime networks, who sell Australian ‘leads’ to industrial-scale scam centres offshore who then targeted Harriet for their fake term deposit scam.
The genius of these frauds is that banks process the transactions which gives cybercriminals the getaway car. Banks then blame the victim for being duped.
In February 2024, following the sale of the family home after her mother went into a nursing home, Harriet wanted to deposit her mother’s money "safely, conservatively".
Thinking she was talking to her bank ING, she spoke with a man with a British accent pretending to be George Thompson, who offered her a fixed-term deposit at a decent rate for her 95-year-old mother, transferring the money from Teachers Mutual (TMB), into a “segregated client holding account” with Westpac.
Harriet did the transaction over the phone with TMB and could login online to the ING fixed term deposit account to see the $1.6m in the fake term deposit.
Her mother's bank authorised the transfer without checking if the receiving account number was in Harriet’s name or her mother's. This is common across all Australian banks. Even though banks have announced Confirmation of Payee and namechecking services, the terms and conditions of bank accounts still refuse to match names and account numbers.
Harriet now knows her family’s money flowed to what’s known as mule accounts. TMB has denied any liability and she has only recovered $232 of the original amount. Victorian Police have arrestedpeople in connection with the case, and they will be attending court later this year. Harriet’s mother has since died.
Harriet's story is told in full in this video from the Daylight Robbery podcast
Harriet’s story
When I was legally appointed to manage my parents' financial decisions, I never imagined I’d be left explaining to my sisters how our entire inheritance had vanished - laundered through Australian bank accounts and funneled overseas by scammers.
My parents were both school teachers. They worked hard, raised five kids, lived within their means, and retired to the south coast.
After Dad passed away in 2019, Mum’s health declined rapidly. Following several strokes and a heart attack, she needed full-time care, and by late 2022, we made the difficult decision to move her into an aged care facility.
The sale of our family home - the house that held five generations of memories - was heartbreaking but necessary. After settling a reverse mortgage and care expenses, we were left with $2 million. That was everything my parents had saved and sacrificed for, and hoped to pass on to the five of us.
I was methodical. I sought professional financial and legal advice. I reserved $400,000 for Mum’s future care, and planned to place the rest - $1.6 million - in a conservative term deposit.
I banked with ING, so when I received a call from a man claiming to be from ING offering a term deposit at a competitive (but not crazy) rate, I didn’t question it. His English accent, the professional brochures, the branding, the legal disclaimers - it all looked completely legitimate.
I even called my Mum’s bank, Teachers Mutual, to compare rates.
They couldn’t match it. I told them I was moving the funds to ING. I clearly stated it was for a fixed-term deposit. They saw that the money was being sent to a Westpac account, but didn’t raise serious concerns.
They asked if I wanted it processed the same day. Of course I did - I was trying to do the right thing for Mum.
That money never went to ING. It went into a mule account, set up in someone else’s name. I found out that within a day, it had been scattered into ten different Australian bank accounts and then sent overseas. Weeks later, the police confirmed that all that remained was $232.
I am a competent professional. I manage multimillion-dollar projects. I triple-check details. I’m used to dealing firmly, with fair contracts - but the situation for financial customers in Australia is definitely not fair. This system puts the burden of detection on victims while letting systemic enablers - banks, regulators, telecom providers - off the hook.
After the first loss, the scammer returned for more - before I knew I had been scammed. This time, they wanted the remaining $400,000. I started the process again - but this time, at last, Teachers Mutual flagged it. Too late for the first transfer, but just in time for the second.
What’s infuriating is that Westpac knew about the suspicious activity for seven days before I was notified. NAB, one of the second tier of banks the money was first transferred to, had flagged the transactions as potential money laundering. Yet no one told me.
My family’s money - the legacy of two hardworking public servants - is likely funding god knows what. Drugs. Human trafficking. International terrorism. That’s the real cost of scams. It’s not just the financial loss, not just the systemic betrayal, but rather the knowledge that your loss is funding someone else’s nefarious activity.
I have joined with other victims to form the Scam Victim Alliance. We want banks to be held accountable. We want transparency, regulatory reform, and access to justice - not just advertising campaigns that are a smokescreen reallocating even more blame and responsibility on victims.