3 days ago
Louis was about to buy his first home after working six-day weeks for years. But with just a click of a button, the young tradie lost everything
A young tradie who spent six years working to save for a house deposit lost $110,000 in the single click of a button after falling victim to an elaborate scam.
Sydney electrician Louis May, 24, found the perfect apartment to buy as his first property in July last year.
He said it needed a little work but he was overall 'very excited' about getting to own his first home, having worked six 10-hour days a week for years.
As he moved forward with the property purchase, his lawyer contacted him from two different email addresses.
When he received an invitation to sign a Property Exchange Australia (PEXA) form from a third email address, he thought nothing of it.
Mr May even contacted his bank, Commonwealth Bank, to check everything was above board before following the instructions enclosed in the email which asked him to deposit a maximum of $100,000 at a time in the PEXA fund.
However, come the day of his property settlement, Mr May's lawyer called him to say the $110,000 transfer was not in his account.
'I said, "I did what you had told me"... he said, "I'd never emailed you a PEXA form",' Mr May said on SBS Insight.
'My heart dropped.
'That was the moment that I realised I was scammed.'
Mr May's mother Alex Brooks helped him to try trace the origins of the scam.
'Someone obviously had breached his confidential home-buying details,' she said.
She talked with multiple cybersecurity experts and paid thousands for online forensics experts.
Ms Brooks maintains her son was not responsible for the breach of his personal and purchasing details.
CBA ultimately offered him $1,000 in compensation which he flatly denied.
'It beggars belief what goes on as people try to seek justice and restitution,' Ms Brooks said.
Mr May was fortunately able to receive a loan from a family member, allowing him to settle on the apartment albeit with an extra $600 interest rate each month.
'It's pretty heartbreaking,' Mr May said.
'I'll just start again, I was supposed to renovate, I was supposed to do a lot.
'But, in that time, all I have done is just kind of put a bed in and just got straight to back to work... it's taken a toll on me.'
Agent Cody Nagel, of the Joint Policing Cyber Crime centre at the Australian Federal Police (AFP), said a cybercrime is reported every six minutes in Australia.
He said the AFP is trying to bring public and private sectors together to interrupt criminal scammers and prosecute those responsible.
'We acknowledge that we can't actually arrest our way out of this problem,' he told the program.
