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John, a 42-year-old man, has zero on his bank account, unable to pay off the credit card and car loan after being caught up in Optus and Medibank hacking scandals.
A Brisbane man whose alias is John spent several sleepless nights tossing and turning after losing his 20k life savings, including his entire January salary.
The hackers moved his fund from his Commonwealth Bank account to his Ubank account, where it was syphoned completely. Upon checking, there were dozens of transactions ranging from $200 to $4050 to make it look less suspicious.
“I couldn’t sleep since it happened … I slept just two to three hours a night. It’s quite a stressful situation knowing I don’t have any money. I don’t have access to cash, I can’t trust the bank anymore – it’s a total messed up situation right now,” he said.
The 42-year-old claimed that since transferring to Australia ten years ago, his money had served as a safety net, including for his partner who recently needed surgery.
John claimed that it all started on January 20 when he received an email notifying him that a new pay ID had been added to his Ubank account, but he ignored it because he believed it to be spam.
However, after receiving another email alerting him to the addition of a new pay ID, he went online to check his account and was dismayed to see that $19,440 had vanished.
“I’m not sure if I’m getting my money back … It would be devastating and big loss for me, and life would be turned upside down completely if I didn’t get it back,” he added.
“If something goes wrong, the bank should compensate me right now. I am happy to help and cooperate, but I don’t need to wait. It’s a stressful and inconvenient time to wait to know what happens to my money.”
A Medibank representative expressed their sincere regret at learning of John’s situation and said they had gotten in touch with him to let him know about the services he could access through their Cyber Response Support Plan, such as identity theft protection, mental health services, and financial hardship aid.
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