‘I’m a stubborn old turd’: This 73-year-old Australian man says his bank failed to protect him from a ‘ghost tapping’ scam — now he’s risking bankruptcy to make them pay

After CCTV footage collected by the police proved it wasn’t him who made those transactions, the bank said it would return the money in full under two conditions.

Williams refused.

"It's the principle of the thing. I just won't wear being called a liar," he said. “I’m a stubborn old turd, and I will not give up.”

Here’s what happened.

Fraudulent $1,338 charge on account

It all began in October 2022. Williams says he discovered two suspicious charges on his account — $515 and $823 — at a Coles supermarket in Bundoora, a suburb 150 kilometers away from his home.

When he contacted NAB’s digital subsidiary, uBank, he says a representative told him the transactions were made using his Google Pay account.

"They said that I was guilty, I was responsible, I was personally at Coles to do the transactions with my phone and my thumbprint," he said.

His maps app and sleep-tracking app both supported his claim he was in Bendigo around that time. He had call and text logs which showed his friend was coming over that morning. He also made a statement at the police station and sent it to the bank, but it was not enough.

Eventually, CCTV footage confirmed that the shopper wasn’t him — police said it showed “two young males” using what appeared to be cloned card credentials on phones.

That’s when the bank offered to reimburse him the $1,338 — on the condition that he sign a non-disclosure agreement and agree that the payment did not mean the bank was taking responsibility for the missing funds.

Five months after Williams declined, a second offer of $1,500 came with strings attached: no legal action allowed. He turned that down too.

The court battle

What followed was a year-long journey of legal research and late nights. He said no civil lawyer he met was willing to take on his case without fees.

Williams represented himself and filed a 14-page writ against NAB, alleging the bank failed to secure his banking credentials and transaction data, failed to use its fraud detection protocols, breached its duty to "protect customers from unauthorised transactions" and violated obligations under Australia’s ePayments Code by not conducting a fair and transparent investigation.

He argued that the $1,338 loss represented 5.5% of his annual pension — and therefore is seeking 5.5% of NAB’s 2022 profit after tax: $379.05 million. "Things need to be proportionate," he said.