Mother working three jobs to pay for her daughter’s medical bills loses $40,000 in cruel scam: See the texts anyone could fall for
- Melbourne mum-of-three conned out of savings
- She needed the money for daughters’ treatments
A devastated single mum has been scammed out of the $40,000 she raised for her teenage daughters’ medical bills in a nightmare employment scam.
Leah Wilson, a Melbourne counsellor, had the money ‘drained’ from her bank account after clicking on links sent to her by who she thought was a recruiter.
It was the second time Ms Wilson has been caught up in an online scam in less than a year after crucial personal information was stolen in the September 2022 Optus data breach.
Recently Ms Wilson applied for jobs online via the legitimate employment agency, Tradewind Australia, then she received a text message saying it had secured her part-time work.
Leah Wilson (left with daughters Grace and Maddie) had the money ‘drained’ from her bank account after clicking on links sent to her by who she thought was a recruiter
Recently Ms Wilson applied for jobs online via the legitimate employment agency, Tradewind Australia, then she received a text message (pictured) from scammers saying it had secured her part-time work
All she had to do to start was supply her phone number, then follow some links and fill out a few forms to complete the process and commence her new job.
But during the chat exchanges she handed over private information that allowed hackers to access her bank account.
The cyber criminals ‘drained’ $40,000 from her bank account, mostly made up of $34,000 she had raised to pay medical bills for her daughters Maddie, 15 and Grace, 17 via GoFundMe.
‘I will not get the money back,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
Ms Wilson added that being scammed ‘can honestly happen to anyone’.
‘I just feel really in shock that [the money is] all gone,’ she told 7News.
‘We are living on a knife’s edge [financially] at the moment.’
Both her daughters suffer from mental health conditions and eating disorders, which have meant the single mum needed to remortgage her home three times to cover the family’s soaring health bill.
Ms Wilson also typically works three jobs to make enough money for her family.
Tradewind Australia confirmed ‘over 100 people’ had reached out to say that scammers had tried to impersonate the company.
The company’s website now features a warning about the scheme.
Melbourne single mum Leah Wilson typically works three jobs to make enough money for her family
Tradewind Australia’s website now features a warning about the scheme
‘We have recently been impacted by a jobs and employment scam, where scammers are impersonating our consultants via WhatsApp and Text Messages and trying to obtain personal and financial information from individuals,’ the warning reads.
Tradewind’s managing director George Richards said his company ‘would never ask for money for services’ and urged jobseekers to ignore such messages.
In 2022 cyber criminals used her driver’s licence details to hack into her myGov account, then lodged fake tax returns in her name.
Last year 31,700 bank customers were the victims of scams according to ASIC.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk