When Sarah Kay realised she had been scammed out of $25,000, her reaction was physical.
"I just went into complete panic mode and I just felt violently sick," she said.
At the age of 30, Sarah had scrimped and saved working as a teacher to buy her first home in Perth, and the scam immediately gutted her hard-earned savings buffer.
"Everything I've worked hard for [was] removed, because I am definitely a saver and saving for a rainy day," she said.
"I've worked hard to achieve that amount in my bank account."
What she did not expect next was the lengthy and largely unsuccessful battle with her bank to be compensated.
Sarah said she had banked with NAB all her life, but described the way they treated her after the scam as "blunt, rude and very disrespectful".
Sarah is among thousands of scammed Australians who have been unable to get compensation from the big four banks, which have only been reimbursing customers in a small minority of cases.
The banks' resourcing has not kept pace with the rapidly growing threat of scams, leaving the response to many cases lacking, a report released on Thursday by corporate regulator ASIC said.
'They knew where I lived'
Sarah received a call on her mobile phone in July last year.
The person on the other end said they were calling from the NBN and her internet connection was not secure and needed to be urgently fixed.
Normally she would be suspicious, but Sarah had recently had problems with her connection so it seemed plausible. The caller also knew a lot about her.
"They knew that I was a teacher, they knew where I lived, they knew my NBN code," she said.
"I thought they wouldn't know this information unless they were legit."
What happened next, Sarah admits, was a mistake — and one she badly regrets.
Scammers told her to download remote access software so they could help her, and they ended up getting access to her computer.
Without her knowing, they were able to access her internet banking and steal $25,000 in one transaction.
She received a warning text message from NAB and rushed to call the bank but it was too late. They told her the money was gone.
Sarah questions why her bank did not stop the payment, given its internal system had flagged it as suspicious and sent her a warning.
She also claims her other bank, St George, protected her money by blocking transactions attempted by the scammers.
"St George saw that it was suspicious and it wasn't my usual pattern of transactions and they just completely rejected it," she said.
"When I rang them they were so caring, so considerate and they were really concerned; I really felt valued and appreciated by them and they were so sorry that I'd gone through this."
Corporate watchdog's push for change
ASIC's report flagged inconsistencies in dealing with scams between Australia's big four banks as a major issue.
It found none of the banks had "a bank-wide approach to determining liability for scam losses, which meant a scam victim might get a different outcome depending on which bank they are with and which department of their bank they dealt with".
The corporate watchdog said this needed to change to make sure outcomes were fair and consistent. The Australian Banking Association said it was working on developing an industry-wide standard.
Like many scam victims, Sarah Kay believes her bank should have compensated her for failing to stop the suspicious transaction.
But ASIC found few victims were compensated by the big banks.
Of more than $500 million stolen from customers last financial year, less than 5 per cent was returned to victims, the report said.
It also said those who received money only received a fraction of what they lost — on average around 36 per cent — and those who complained were more likely to receive compensation.
Advocates such as the Consumer Action Law Centre believe banks should be forced to reimburse scam victims.
"We think it'll drive innovation," the centre's Stephanie Tonkin said.
"It'll drive protection of customers against scammers.
"The banks are not taking this crisis seriously enough."
The banking industry has rejected these calls, arguing it already invests heavily in preventing scams.
A 'distressing' fight for compensation
Unsatisfied, Sarah decided to fight her bank, lodging a complaint directly and then going further to the ombudsman, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
She even offered to split the responsibility with the bank 50-50 and accept compensation for just half her savings — but said that was rejected.
"NAB was completely against it," she said
"When I expressed my concerns, [they said], 'We are not liable.'"
NAB has maintained she was the one who gave the scammers ultimate access to her account.
After lengthy negotiations, Sarah received $5,000 from her bank. But she said the entire complaint process made her feel like she was at a significant disadvantage.
"It's very distressing," she said.
"You're going up against these massive banks that have a whole team to back them and you're by yourself."
Scams a problem for 'everyone', banks say
There were key issues in dispute in Sarah's case.
She believes the bank was at fault because her daily transaction limit should only have been $2,500, which would not have allowed the scam payment to go through.
She had increased her limit to $40,000 to make the deposit payment on her house, but Sarah maintains that she told her bank prior to the scam to change it back to the previous limit as she did not feel safe with the higher amount.
NAB said the payment could not have occurred without Sarah passing on a text message code and other details to the scammers. Sarah said she never did this.
She said when she asked the bank to supply sufficient evidence to support the transaction limit being higher, it supplied her with a basic document that was unconvincing.
Further, she said NAB never gave her evidence she had received the text message code and other key details.
NAB told the ABC it did not comment on individual cases, but said its team made "every effort" to retrieve money for customers who had been scammed.
"This isn't just a problem for banks and telcos, this is an issue for every public and private organisation, and it will take ongoing collaboration with government, business, the community and customers to help stop," NAB's executive for group investigations and fraud, Chris Sheehan, said in a statement.
The Australian Banking Association said it had spent months working on an industry guideline to implement more consistency across the sector, but eliminating the scam risk was impossible.
"Every bank is doing what they can to protect customers," the association's chief executive, Anna Bligh, said.
"But every time they close one gate, unfortunately, scammers go and find another way,"
