By Tyler Wright
The Upwey-Tecoma Bowls Club has fallen victim to a vicious scam, costing them more than $100,000 in the process of rebuilding their facilities lost to damage during flooding in late 2022.
A flash flooding event on Tuesday 25 October last year demolished the club’s front green and damaged around 40 per cent of its back lawn.
Covered by insurance, the green was replaced in April 2023, with Berry Bowling Systems Pty Ltd contracted to complete the works.
And while payments of $20,000 for the back green and an additional deposit of $50,000 to repair the front green had been processed, 14 days after the final payment of $118,000, secretary Les Lane received a call from the contractors.
“They contacted me and said ‘we haven’t been paid’ and I said ‘yes, you have. We paid you the day after you completed the work’. They said ‘we haven’t received the money,'” Mr Lane said.
“We thought that these were the invoices from Berry’s and the treasurer duly organised payment.”
Commissioning IT forensic specialists, it was discovered the club had been targeted by a business email compromise scam; where hackers had been tracking the club’s email history.
The original invoice was quickly deleted from the club’s inbox after it was sent and replaced with an identical copy, with the only difference in the doctored document being the BSB and account number.
“The email arrived from Berry’s with the invoices on it and they deleted that email from my account. That was taken to Uganda, where they altered the bank details, the bank name and the BSB number and then resent the invoices,” Mr Lane said.
“We recalled the money, and obviously within 14 days, the baddies had already taken the money away and we were $120,000 down the tube.”
Mr Lane said being “spoofed” of this amount of money has left the club “devastated”.
“Being a little club with 100 members, it’s very difficult to get funding from the federal or state government or from anywhere else,” he said.
“We were saving up to replace the back green, which has to be replaced in about 12 years time, but now we’re behind the eight ball.
“Normally the biggest amount we’d ever pay out would be $5,000 for our insurance premiums, but we would never, ever consider being spoofed, and we never had insurance to cover that, so we’re on our own.”
The club has also sought legal advice.
Berry Bowling Systems’ General Manager David Aarons said the organisation “immediately” employed an IT forensic auditor to track and trace the situation and met with the bank after discovering it had not received the funds from the Upwey-Tecoma Bowls Club.
“This type of scam is now one of the largest methods for scammers to steal money from organisations,” Mr Aarons said.
The club created an online fundraiser on 8 July, with people donating a total of $1,810 to the club so far.
“We appreciate that because every penny helps, and we’re hoping that we can recover some monies back from that and go from there,” Mr Lane said.
Bowls Australia reported a similar incident in December 2020, where another club lost $20,000 to a business email compromise scam.
Mr Lane warned other clubs and those susceptible.
“If the amount is in excess of $2,000, you should ring the creditor and check the bank and make sure that you’ve got the right bank details before you make any payments; that’s the advice I’d give anybody if you’re in doubt or if it’s a large amount,” Mr Lane said.
“Check before you pay.”
To donate to the bowls club, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-upweytecoma-bowls-club-recover-from-floods?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer
