Scammers can now cut off your mobile phone and drain your bank account in just minutes

A new scam targeting Australians is seeing fraudsters exploiting mobile phone network providers so that they drain a victim’s bank account.

Fraudsters will port the victim’s mobile phone number to a new sim card, which is owned by the scammer, so that they can then use the mobile number as a form of identification to transfer money.

A victim of this scam, Lisa Johnson, told 9News that it all started when she received a phone call where the caller immediately hung up.

Later that night, Lisa received a text from Optus saying a request had been made to port her number, followed 30 seconds later by a confirmation text from Vodafone, confirming the task had been completed.

When she called Optus, her service was not active and then, 15 minutes later, she received a notification that $1000 had been withdrawn from her account.

Porting a number only requires details such as a name, address, date of birth and bank account numbers. Scammers can obtain this information from stealing mail or hacking methods.

Network providers are required by law to fulfil a request to port a mobile phone number to a new carrier within three hours.

Detective Chief Inspector Matt Craft told 9News that the scam had cost Australians $10 million in the last year. He said the timeframe for number ports to complete should be extended.

“There needs to be time for a customer to respond and respond appropriately,” he said.