Celebrity chef homeless after hackers steal $250k | A Current Affair Australia

we begin with the cruel scam that's left TV chef Danny ven and her young family homeless hackers stole two hundred and fifty thousand dollars the money they just earned from the sale of their house reporter Reed Butler will join us in a moment but first how the scammers were able to steal so much money so easily this is our life savings y'all like we've got two small children we've got a four and a half month old and a three and a half year old you know you can't do this to people in an instant we are so Chris and his wife former MasterChef star Danny Venn lost their life savings and a place to call home it's got a list of been overwhelming your feel embarrassed you feel bad for everybody else that you're putting out and you're having to ask for help I'm having to sleep in a caravan so I can't be there for my family but but squashy as you can as you can see yeah that's it's not right it shouldn't be happening they just sold their semi-rural property and were planning to use the 250,000 dollars to settle on a new place near the beach like they'd always dreamed but before the money from the sale hit their account it was stolen by hackers it could happen to anyone buying or selling a property I mean that's what we're all scared about it's could happen to you could happen to me could happen to anyone that's buying a house that's forced to use this electronic platform their conveyance I was using the online Property Transfer company pexif which claims to be transparent secure fast but the process was compromised and its cost this young Melbourne couple everything's they won't give us back our money unconditionally and all we want is for our own money back like we're being treated like criminals like we've done something wrong we haven't done anything wrong we've only put faith in the system unable to settle on their new property and with the buyers already moved into their old place they're stuck in every family's worst nightmare this past week has been horrific I feel like I'm just spinning in a vortex and I can't get out while Chris sleeps in the caravan Danny and her two young children are bunking in this all room at her mum's house yeah it's just been so stressful and it's really hard on the family it all seems to have just been too easy for the hackers yeah it's just disgusting people think oh yeah sure they they're gonna get it back a hacker took it they they're gonna get it back actually no we're not gonna get it back not unless like we fight for it now Danny and Chris are paying $500 a day in contractual penalties because they missed the settlement and if they don't come up with the $120,000 required to finalize the purchase of their new property by the end of this week they'll lose the home and their deposit Australia is in the process of converting from the traditional title paper system of exchanging property to online systems hexa is revolutionizing Australia's property industry the private cyber company in charge of the evolution is property exchange Australia or Pixar and is backed by the state governments and the big banks paperwork is significantly reduced and funds are transferred electronically meaning fast access to cleared funds hexa is relatively new but has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years and is currently planning a 1.1 billion dollar public listing on the Australian Stock Exchange you put your faith in the government's and the banks to do the right thing and the fact that Pixar is a privately owned company the shareholders are the four major banks and four state governments in Australia so if you can't trust them who can you who can you trust the couple's conveyancers we're using Pixlr to settle on the new home and that's when the hack is struck the fraudsters accessed her conveyancers picks her account adding themselves as another user before stealing the 250,000 dollars and transferring that money into their account the Pyxis system does not require additional users on a conveyance his account to provide proof of identity the 250,000 went across to the hackers account CBA told us that they'd frozen it but they actually only been able to recover 100 $38,000 so the remaining is is unrecoverable we've been told the most frightening bit about this major cyber security breach is that pizza and the electronic exchange of property is likely to become mandatory for all potential homeowners in Victoria and w-a in October and New South Wales from next month hexa is committed to supporting the transition to a 100% digital conveyancing process that's fast safe and efficient for the whole of the Australian property industry from the start they were on the front foot absolute denial absolute denial of any wrongdoing any responsibility and that's that's just so wrong for a company of that size they need to guarantee that this system is secure in order for it to become compulsory or else this is gonna keep happening again after Danny threatened to go to the media app XR offered to loan the outstanding cash but with strict conditions if the couple accepted they'd have to pay back the money whether their conveyancing cybercrime insurance claim was successful or not they were gonna loan us the money and we'd have to pay it back again so double peckerwood also put a caveat on their new property and if the couple took up the offer they'd also need to stop the criticizing Peck sir in public with lawyers for the e conveyancing giant writing Peck sir would expect that they'd not disparage Peck sir to the media but confirm in any discussions with the media that Pixar has been proactive in assisting them that's not okay that's lying and you know we have values and ethics and we're not breaking them because they don't want the public to know what's going on we need competition in place because at the moment Pixar is a monopoly David Buxton is director of Sydney legal agents and acts on behalf of more than 500 lawyers and conveyancers who oppose picks are becoming mandatory for Australian property transfers citing security and cost concerns for clients pecks are sort of saying look go back to your insurers or go back to your conveyancer it's not not really anything to do with us information is easily shared across participants these are just some of the many benefits of a conveyancing I think most of us think gee we needed something a bit stronger than that in terms of the controls of the environment so says the state governments have an interest in privatizing the industry through Pixar because they can reap huge benefits from selling traditional land title offices so the New South Wales government were the first to do it and they got 2.6 billion for the sale of the New South Wales toilets office now Danny and Chris just have to hope their insurance comes through but that investigation could take months we want to make sure that this doesn't happen again to anybody else like no one deserves fear in this situation and we just want our money back that's bottom-line just give us our money back you can't blame them reporter Reid Butler joins us now Reid this is about a hundred and twelve thousand dollars we're talking about here Peck sir is about to launch on the stock exchange for a billion dollars wouldn't you think they would restore the VINs money and look after their security and their reputation yeah you'd think they would Tracy instead Pixar are digging their heels in late today they sent us a statement maintaining their system is safe and it wasn't compromised instead they've laid the blame on the conveyancers shoulders saying it's up to them to ensure that the settlement process is completed accurately despite telling us that though they then also went on to say that they'll be upgrading their security system and that pixel will be putting extra measures in place to make sure that this sort of fraud doesn't happen again interesting considering they're saying they've got nothing to do with it that loan with all those conditions still stands this is not an isolated case is it no it is in a coronet a Current Affair can reveal and we've obtained emails of two separate times that pixel was warned in writing of similar breaches once on May 17 where a client lost around 700,000 dollars and another time on May 31st where a client lost more than $1,000,000 now if pixxa had alerted its conveyancing network of these serious breaches Danny and her family would have almost certainly not used Pixar to do their settlement process they would have been in the home tonight all right thank you very much Reid I'm sure we'll stay on it you

Channel: A Current Affair

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Keywords: Celebrity, homeless celebrity, hackers stealing money, ACA, breaking news, A Current Affair, 9 News, nine news, Entertainment, 9news, hackers, Tracey, 9news australia, dani venn recipes, australian news, masterchef hacked, Tracy Grimshaw, dani venn, celebrity hacked, Interviews, homeless masterchef, 60 minutes australia, 60 minutes

Id: MYMniPgNwHU

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 22 2018

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