“If the plaintiffs had been told the first transfer was to an incorrect account they would have taken steps to recover the payment,” their writ states.
According to the couple’s lawyer,scammers doctored the Mercedes-Benz invoice PDF to change the BSB and account number to a different account.
“There was no way on its face that anyone could tell it had been altered,” said Bruce King,the lawyer representing the couple,soon after the writ was lodged.
In its defence,Mercedes-Benz admitted that one of its employees had received four emails from Angliss advising of the separate car payments more than a week before the scam was revealed.
It wasn’t until March 7,five days after the final payment email,that Mercedes-Benz said that its employee contacted Angliss to tell her the funds had not been received.
According to the company’s defence,Angliss responded:“Payment was made to the account as instructed,will follow up with my bank tomorrow on this payment”.
A week later,on March 14,Mercedes-Benz claims that it again sought confirmation that the funds had been paid into the correct account.
Mercedes-Benz said that the fraudulent email with the fake invoice had come from a Bigpond address linked to a pool company.
“[It] was not sent by the defendant or the dealer,” the defence states.
The company denied that it owed a duty of care to the couple and said that Angliss had contributed towards her own damages by not having adequate IT or password security on her email account.
Mercedes-Benz also said Angliss had not verified the bank account details were correct before making the transfers and that she had failed to take reasonable steps to confirm the money was received.
Invoice scamming is on the rise in Australia and can result in huge losses,with a focus on big purchases such as renovations,cars and properties.
Between January and September this year,28,617 false billing scams were reported to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch,with approximately $23 million lost.
Loading
Losses were 52 per cent higher on the same period last year,the watchdog said.
Consumer advocateshave been calling for the banks to introduce “confirmation of payee” to help stop the problem of fake invoicing,a system that is being used in the UK.
This masthead recently reported on the case of Simon Elvins,who lost $275,000 in an invoice scam involving a property purchase.