Just paid a fake invoice or sent money to fraudulent bank details? Do these six things in the next 60 minutes.
The first hour is the difference between recovering the money and losing it. Work top-to-bottom. Don't skip steps to catch up.
Before you start: put your phone on speaker, open a notepad, and write the current time at the top. You'll need timestamps for every action.
Ask them to attempt an immediate recall/trace on the payment and freeze any further transactions from the account. Speed matters more than anything else in the next hour — most banks can only recover funds that haven't already been withdrawn.
Lodge an official cybercrime report at cyber.gov.au/report. You'll get a reference number your bank, insurer and lawyer will all ask for. This is free and takes about 10 minutes.
IDCARE is Australia and New Zealand's free national identity and cyber support service. If the scam involved your ABN, driver licence, Medicare, passport or business banking logins, they will walk you through the exact steps to lock things down.
Do not delete anything. Save the original email (full headers), the invoice PDF, any SMS, the bank statement line, and screenshots of the sender's address and any attachments. Put copies in a single folder titled with today's date. Your insurer will ask for all of it.
Most cyber policies require notification within a defined window (often 24–72 hours). Ring your broker or insurer directly and give them your ReportCyber reference. Loop in your accountant or bookkeeper so payroll, BAS and reconciliations aren't affected.
Lodge a report at scamwatch.gov.au so the pattern can be shared nationally. Send an internal note to everyone with accounts-payable access describing exactly what happened, so they don't approve a follow-up scam using the same playbook.
Phone numbers and links are provided as a public reference and were correct at time of writing. Always confirm on the official website of each organisation. RILLA Shield does not act on your behalf with banks, insurers or law-enforcement, and cannot guarantee recovery of funds. If you're unsure, contact a qualified advisor.
RILLA Shield scans every invoice and bank-detail change before you pay, and produces a signed Evidence Pack your insurer will actually accept.