It took just 48 hours for John to lose his money. Photo / 7 News
A Sydney dad has been swindled out of his family's life savings after falling victim to an elaborate hiring scam.
The man, who thought he was starting a new job working remotely after clicking on a fake job ad on Facebook, was conned out of $80,000 in just 48 hours.
The father of two was introduced to a fake employer and added to a WhatsApp group filled with fake employees, all working together on the intricate scam.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said these kinds of scams were common, with 300 reports of similar scams this year alone.
The family are so embarrassed by the incident, they wish to hide their identities, reported 7 News.
John – not his real name – owns a petrol franchise that went bust due to the impacts of the pandemic and a new motorway diverting traffic. He was looking for some extra cash while attempting to sell his business.
With two children Nick, 19, and Kathleen, 21, both studying fulltime, and wife Carol not working, John was under pressure to find a new way of paying the bills.
"We didn't have any income, we needed some way for money to come in, so we were sort of desperate," Nick told 7 News.
The job ad had popped up on Facebook on August 24 with the option to work online.
Desperate, John, 48, didn't think twice about clicking on the link.
Venus, a fake e-marketing company, manipulated John into creating an online wallet for his clicks-for-commission role, in which he would artificially inflate online traffic statistics.
With the wallet quickly emptied, Venus treated this as an IT problem.
John was transferred to a "customer service contact" who instructed him to deposit his own money into the wallet.
They claimed he could later withdraw it, along with his commission.
Provided various account numbers to transfer his funds by the thousands, he watched as his online wallet appeared to "recharge".
In the WhatsApp group chat of "co-workers", the scammers began posting fake receipts of their own deposits and withdrawals, pretending the "technical difficulty" was normal and had been resolved.
Two days later when the job was completed, John's online wallet appeared to contain the $86,000 he had deposited, plus his earnings, but when he went to withdraw it, it declined.
The family moved from India to Australia 15 years ago. English is John and Carol's second language.
The scams "disproportionately affected members of culturally and linguistically diverse communities," the ACCC reported.
"Overall, more than 13 per cent of losses ($9.6 million) to investment scams were from people who spoke English as a second language," the ACCC said.
Nick said his family were "vulnerable" and had been taken advantage of.
"(Dad) didn't know how vulnerable people could be on the internet, how people could manipulate or emotionally control you into giving away your entire life savings," he said.
After his Dad's withdrawal request was declined, and he was told to upgrade his service for a further $30,000 if he wanted to access his money, Nick said his sister thought it was "sketchy".
John, however, had drained his own family's savings, and borrowed $30,000 from a friend as a work-related loan.
"Since I moved to Australia … whatever financial hardship I faced, I never asked for a single dollar from anyone. This is the first time I borrowed money from my friends," John told 7 News.
"It is a big burden on my heart."
The family, who are all searching for work, have started a GoFundMe page to try to cover their losses.