A Western Australian Westpac banker has stopped a $1.2 million transfer to a sophisticated payment redirection scam, in which only an extra letter in the email address showed the fake message. The customer, a young mother buying her first property, was preparing for settlement when she visited Westpac’s Riverton branch to make the transfer after receiving an email. “The email asked her to transfer funds into a settlement account, which didn’t line up with how these payments usually work.” Instead of processing the transfer, Kukreja cross-checked previous communication and found that the staff member named in the reply was on leave. It was then uncovered that the agent’s email account had been hacked, allowing scammers to send incredibly convincing but fake payment instructions to force the transfer urgently.