Ben Fordham is urging Australians to check their travel money cards after he fell victim to an ’embarrassing’ fraud involving OnlyFans.
The 2GB host visited his local Commonwealth Bank branch to close the accounts linked to his and his wife’s travel cards.
Fordham told the bank clerk that he wouldn’t be using the travel cards anymore and wanted to transfer any remaining funds back to his regular bank account.
However, when the Commonwealth Bank employee pulled up the account on their computer, Fordham immediately noticed ‘OnlyFans’ listed in the transaction history – a platform where users pay subscription fees to access adult content.
‘I had this embarrassing conversation with the gentleman behind the counter… he was pretending he didn’t see it,’ Fordham said.
‘It was an uncomfortable moment where I said to him, “Look, I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I swear I have not spent any money with OnlyFans”.’
The bank employee told Fordham he had been targeted by a scammer.
The transaction history showed that $50USD had been transferred out to ‘OnlyFans.com’ and then returned to the account just minutes later.
Ben Fordham told listeners he had an embarrassing conversation a Commonwealth Bank employee after he spotted ‘OnlyFans’ on his travel card account’s transaction list
The Commonwealth Bank employee explained Fordham was a target of fraud, with the bank recognising the illegal transaction and reversing it within minutes
Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn described the ‘Onlyfans.com’ transactions as a garden variety fraud.
‘Hopefully it wasn’t too awkward or embarrassing for you,’ Mr Comyn told Fordham.
‘In this case, you as the account holder had no involvement in that actual transaction as it was undertaken by another third party. That’s an easier problem to deal with because you had nothing to do with it.
‘You’re covered by our fraud guarantee, which is our ability to reverse and give you back all of your funds.’
Fordham thanked the Commonwealth Bank for its swift action in recognising the fraud and reversing the charges.
He then urged his listeners to be vigilant and check their travel cards regularly as they are often left unchecked once a person returns from their travels.
Mr Comyn agreed and said it was an account fraudsters targeted because it was not checked frequently.
‘Unfortunately we all need to be really alert to all sorts of different types of frauds and scams.’
Mr Comyn added that the Commonwealth Bank was running about 800 seminars in the next 12 months to educate its customers on what to look out for when it comes to frauds and scams.
So far this year, Australians have lost a whopping more than $208.2 million in scams, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s ScamWatch.
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