It said it was aware of the scam and said it was devastating to see the effects on victims.

Suncorp said the scam was known as spoofing and involved the fraudsters impersonating the phone number of legitimate businesses in SMS and voice calls.

The scammers also go through the standard security questions with their potential victims, which added to the authenticity. SMS messages from the scammers also appeared on the victim’s phone underneath legitimate ones.

“They do this as a way to gain a victim’s trust and pressure their victims to move funds to other banks,” the bank said.

“Suncorp customers should be alert to receiving messages or calls claiming to be from Suncorp Bank asking them to transfer money or share information like passwords.

“Suncorp will never ask a customer to share their passwords, including one-time passwords or PINs.”

It said as soon as it became aware that a customer had fallen victim to the scam, its fraud teams try to recover the funds.

“Our process is designed to be recovery focused and we prioritise contacting the other bank, to which the payments were sent,” Suncorp said.

“We know scammers shift the funds quickly and we work quickly to ensure any funds that can be recovered are secured at the other bank.

“While we do take steps to recover funds … due to the nature, speed and sophistication of scams, this is not always possible.”