ANDREW HOLMES: I was on my way home from work. I got this phone call and they said they were somebody from ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) and that we were targeted and involved in a scam.
MICHAEL ATKIN, REPORTER: Andrew Holmes should be loving life. His three young kids are a constant source of joy, but Andrew’s superannuation has been stolen and he can’t stop thinking about it.
ANDREW HOLMES: At times, it’s just completely consuming. It just doesn’t leave my brain, but they were good.
MICHAEL ATKIN: In December 2020 Andrew’s phone rang. It was an English man who claimed to be based in Melbourne with a company called Investfast, also known as Investquick.
The pitch was about setting up a self-managed super fund to get high investment returns.
ANDREW HOLMES: I had a lot of initial resistance and didn’t just jump in.
MICHAEL ATKIN: The Investquick website claimed to be safely managing over $600 million.
The website displayed the details of two legitimate Australian businesses with similar names – both have told 7.30 their details had been copied and used without their knowledge.
KEN GAMBLE, CYBERCRIME INVESTIGATOR, IFW GLOBAL: Investquick is another fraudulent name, which has been invented by a very clever syndicate of fraudsters who are doing multiple different scams.
(Footage of Philippines call centre raid)
KEN GAMBLE: So you’re surveying them to see whether they’re interested in investing.
WORKER: Investing or not.
(End of footage)
MICHAEL ATKIN: Two weeks ago, 7.30 went inside this police raid on a call centre in the Philippines which is allegedly linked to multi-million-dollar scams targeting Australians for their superannuation.
After seeing that story Andrew Holmes contacted 7.30.
ANDREW HOLMES: Oh God, when I saw the story, they could have my details.
KEN GAMBLE: This is the investigation that we’ve done so far on Investquick.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Private cybercrime investigator Ken Gamble has looked into the scam.
KEN GAMBLE: It looks like the crooks have picked it up sometime probably in 2019.
MICHAEL ATKIN: He represents a different man who was contacted by Investquick and later had his super stolen in another scam known as ASAL Group.
KEN GAMBLE: So this scam, Investquick is directly connected to ASAL. It’s the identical methodology used by the scammers.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Investquick sent emails to Andrew Holmes and to Ken Gamble’s client that are almost identical.
KEN GAMBLE: And you can see the wording of both emails is identical so clearly it’s the same fraud syndicate involved in both scams.
ANDREW HOLMES: It’s confronting, someone fell for it like, exactly the same way I did.
MICHAEL ATKIN: 7.30 can reveal 45 self-managed super funds for clients like Andrew were set up by a Melbourne accounting firm.
In a statement BNR Business Accountants said Investquick ceased contact last year and it has provided evidence to the corporate regulator, ASIC.
KEN GAMBLE: And that’s 45 people that have potentially been defrauded.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars has been stolen from Andrew’s super account making him worry about his family’s future.
ANDREW HOLMES: I’m not going to have anything to leave the kids because I’ve got to save to finance our, start literally from the ground up, start all over again.
MICHAEL ATKIN: The hardest part was telling his wife Haylea.
HAYLEA HOLMES: It was very hard, he was very upset. At that point, we kind of thought, oh, this is just a big mistake, you know? Surely, it’ll be easy enough to get back.
MICHAEL ATKIN: But it hasn’t been easy. Andrew alleges his fund Energy Super rolled his money over without his knowledge after being tricked by the scammers.
The scammers submitted forged forms, which had his old address and a fake bank statement resulting in his life savings being paid into a Westpac account that wasn’t his.
ANDREW HOLMES: They forged my signature and then forged JP stamps and used JP names from a Victorian registry.
TELEPHONE CALLER: Hi there again, its Andrew Holmes, I’m just wondering, I’ve lodged a rollover ….
MICHAEL ATKIN: This recording by Energy Super is of a scammer pretending to be Andrew ringing his super fund to check on the rollover.
TELEPHONE CALLER: No worries, what was the final balance in the end?
ENERGY SUPER REPRESENTATIVE: It looks to be about $222,533.18.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Energy Super now trades as Brighter Super – the company declined to be interviewed.
It’s refusing to reimburse Andrew Holmes, saying in a statement he voluntarily gave the scammer his identity documents and it contacted him before the withdrawal.
The Financial Complaints Authority AFCA has sided with the super trustee finding it acted in accordance with industry guidelines and there was nothing in the rollover to indicate it was fraudulent.
ANDREW HOLMES: It beggars belief that if you’re in charge of these huge sums of money, they have no two-factor authentication within their security systems to verify it’s actually the person who requested the rollover.
GERARD BRODY, CONSUMER ACTION LAW CENTRE: I think that super funds should have obligations to ensure that any rollover is done in accordance with their customer’s instructions and there isn’t fraudulent activity.
We should expect better of super funds.
(Public speaking) And the customer had been scammed out of all of her savings only then to be convinced to take out a loan of $20,000…
MICHAEL ATKIN: Consumer advocate Gerard Brody is leading a campaign for financial institutions to take more responsibility for scams that don’t involve customer negligence.
GERARD BRODY: We’re calling for new rules to place obligations on banks and firms to detect scam transactions, prevent them and importantly, reimburse blameless victims.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Back in Townsville Andrew Holmes is determined to keep pursuing his super fund. He believes improvements are needed to reduce fraud in the financial system and protect others
ANDREW HOLMES: I’ve never felt more alone in a huge, huge battle. I would hate to think that anyone else gets scammed the way that I did.
