https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-27/superannuation-scam-hostplus-fraud-afca-c...






By national consumer affairs reporter Michael Atkin

updated 4h ago


He wanted to invest $10,000 first to see how it performed.

But scammers used the documents he'd provided to fraudulently take the lot.
One phone call could have stopped it



    In short: ,
was stolen by scammers who used fraudulent documents to trick his fund.
    He launched a four-year legal battle to get a refund from his super fund, but only got back a third, which didn't cover his legal fees.
    What's next? Industry experts want the federal government to urgently increase security obligations, such as multi-factor authentication and checks on who owns a bank account when rolling over a member's super.

Lee Braz was well into his 50s and knew he had to sort out his super.

Then he received a call from a Sydney company promising to help him do just that.

But the call was the start of a nightmare that would see Lee's entire super balance, about $180,000, stolen.

Before going ahead, Lee checked the company's website and saw it was properly registered in Australia.

In sales documents it claimed to have impressive returns using money from self-managed super funds to invest in tech and finance giants like Google and Visa.

Lee sent over his passport to open an account. He wanted to invest $10,000 first to see how it performed.

But scammers used the documents he'd provided to fraudulently take the lot.

What the hell is going on?

So if a scammer has a copy of your passport details they can take all your super
and the super fund won't even phone you to check if that is really you?

My opinion:
He should have received all of his $180,000 back plus interest
plus legal costs plus a a substantial amount for the stress it caused.

When you invest in something, you should check and recheck to see if the company is reliable. I made the mistake of putting $700 towards that Herbalife company. But it turned out to be a big pyramid scheme. The profits you get are little. But, at least the supervisor I had did give me my investment back.

The government is the biggest scammer of all. Taxpayers lose more than $1000 per person per year to the cost of administrating the superannuation scheme. "Industry Experts" are calling for more protection because they are the ones that end up with the money. You can now get budget self-managed super for just over $1000 per year in additional administration costs (compared to if you were managing the same amount of money outside of super). These "experts" don't want you to have the cheap option. They want endless paperwork and bureaucracy. They want the Australian public to waste billions on them so they can "save" us from scammers who take millions.

But 30 billion a year is legally stolen in fees

Sir lastnail wrote on Jun 27^th, 2024 at 5:09pm:



Wherever there's a big pot of money you
can be sure the Govt is there taking some of it.

On TV news tonight - probate fees going up for Wills.

https://vic.liberal.org.au/media-releases/2024-06-27-allan-labor-governments-sec...

Victorians are set to be taxed beyond the grave by the Allan Labor Government
with a new form of death duties to be imposed under the guise of massive increases to probate fees.

While probate fees were previously set at a flat rate and capped
for estates valued at $5 million or more at a fee of $2,318.90,
Victorian families will now have to pay a probate fee based
on a sliding scale up to $15,407.40; an increase of 564.4 per cent.

John Smith wrote on Jun 27^th, 2024 at 5:54pm:



Lee hasn't posted on this thread.