From March 2018 to 2019 in Wagga there were 396 cases of fraud, which includes scamming. This was up 87 cases from the 12 months before.

On January 4, 2018, Wendy Madigan stopped by her NAB branch to make an inquiry about a home loan for her son.

There were no specialists available, but she was assured someone would contact her in the coming days. The next day Ms Madigan was doing her washing when the phone rang and the man asked for her.

"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'," she said.

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."

The man 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. It was a representative from NAB who told her to hang the landline up straight away.

"She said 'you've just been scammed of $9786'," Ms Madigan said.

Nine weeks later, the money was returned but she will be forever cautious and said people do not realise how common this crime is.

"I cried when they told me the money had been returned," she said.

"My message to others is, if someone calls you claiming to be the bank or the ATO hang up and call them yourself.

"Now I have a red flag on my account. I don't give my credit card to anyone."

Ms Madigan said she had one question for the person who was responsible.

"How could you be so evil," she said.

"They are preying on people and they are benefiting from vulnerable people. I was lucky, but some people are not."

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