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Yangebup Progress Association’s carols by candlelight event scammed of thousands by fake invoices

Jordan Cutts7NEWS
VideoA community group who puts on Carols by Candelight in Perth's south has been fleeced out of thousands of dollars.

Sneaky scammers have fleeced a carols by candlelight event in Perth’s southern suburbs out of thousands of dollars.

The con artists hacked into the organiser’s email and re-produced expected invoices — with their own bank accounts details.

Yangebup Progress Association volunteers only worked out they had been scammed when it was too late.

Spokeswoman Chontelle Stone said the group was “absolutely devastated”.

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“We can’t believe that someone has defrauded us,” she said.

“I’ve had one of our committee members not being able to sleep at night.”

The scam is known as the ‘man in the middle scam’ and is not uncommon in con-artist circles.

Scammers hacked email accounts and send invoices from suppliers to a secret folder, before they can be read.

The thieves then create identical fake invoices, changing the bank details to their own.

The fake bills are then emailed back to the victims, who believe they have received a legitimate invoice.

But their payment ends up in a criminal’s bank account.

In this case, the thieves got away with more than $5000 — a third of the Yangebup community group’s budget.

Devastated and disheartened, but determined not to let other community groups fall into the same trap, Chontelle is now phoning around and warning them.

Her advice is old school — once you have the invoice, call the supplier and double check the bank details that have been emailed through.

Consumer Protection Commissioner David Hillyard said more appropriately, people should pay by credit card or PayPal.

“That way the people you’re transacting with have got formalised banking arrangement and there are claw-back provisions,” he said.

More than 50 West Australians reported the scam to Consumer Protection this year, with criminals getting away with $1.47 million in total.

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