There were no specialists available, but she was assured someone would contact her in the coming days to help. 

The next day, Ms Madigan was doing the laundry when the phone rang.

“I didn't catch the fellow's name, all I heard was ‘National Australia Bank’, and I just assumed it was from the local branch,” she said.

“Then this fellow said ‘I'm just ringing to tell you that $900 was going to be transferred out of your internet banking account to the USA’.”

Ms Madigan told him she did not have an internet banking account and she had no intention of making that transfer.

The man passed her on to his ‘supervisor’, who introduced himself as Michael Matthews.

“He said ‘I just wanted to get in touch with you because we don't want this money going out of your account and we need to stop it’,” Ms Madigan said.

“He asked me for my internet banking password and pin number, and I told him I already said I didn’t have one.

“He told me that was okay, I was Wendy Ann Madigan, he gave me my date of birth, my address, my mobile number, my husband's email address, and all the accounts we had, including trust accounts for our grandchildren – now would you not think that must be authentic?” 

The ‘supervisor’ told Ms Madigan he would text her a series of numbers and asked her to repeat them back to him.

As she read out the numbers, Ms Madigan’s mobile rang.

“I got on the mobile and the woman said ‘I'm ringing from the NAB scam unit and I want you to hang your landline up straight away – you've just been scammed of $9786’,” she said.

Within the space of 12 minutes, Ms Madigan’s account had been hacked.

“It felt very intrusive – like somebody breaking into your house – and they must target people over 65 because they think we're all stupid,” she said.

“They were so professional and they knew so much – that was the scary part.”

NAB’s fraud unit contacted Ms Madigan a couple of days later and told her she was one of several customers who had been scammed.

“NAB rang me on the Monday and said they had found my money and other people's money in an account with the Bank of Melbourne, so it didn't go out of the country,” she said.

“They told me they're so sophisticated, they're so convincing, so don't beat yourself up about it, because they're so good at what they do and they're getting more and more sophisticated all the time.

“It was just ironic – in hindsight, I think if I hadn't gone into the bank the day before, I would have been more switched on about the phone call.” 

Ms Madigan said the police and NAB are still working on retrieving her money.