News

The previously advised planned maintenance has now been completed. All customers please note that ADF Online has a new web address beginning with https://adfonline.org.au/.

The ADF wishes to advise all customers be aware of a current overpayment fraud trend that is impacting Queensland businesses.

Overpayment or ‘payment in error’ fraud involves fraudsters making payments via a business’s online payment link and then contacting the business to advise an incorrect payment amount was entered or the payment was made in error and they request the funds be returned via account transfer.

How the Fraud Works

This is quite a sophisticated fraud attempt where the fraudster works hard to make you believe they made the payment in error and that they need the funds returned immediately.

• The fraudster steals credit card details and then uses these stolen credit card details to process a payment using your online payment link (BPOINT page) for a relatively large amount
• The fraudster will then email you to confirm if you received the payment, they generally don’t ask for the money back immediately as they attempt to build a rapport with you first
• When you advise that you have received it, they will then ask for you to return the funds. They will either say that they only wish to make a small payment or donation and will request the difference be returned to them via account transfer or they will say they made the payment in error and request the full amount be returned via account transfer
• They have been successful in their fraud if you return the funds via account transfer and you will then be out of pocket the amount that you transferred plus the amount of the original transaction as the issuer of the stolen credit card will also reverse the transaction from your account.

How to Protect Your School or Parish

There are a number of steps that your business can take to protect yourself from frauds of this nature.

• Ensure your staff are aware of this scam and understand how it works so they can identify it, avoid it and report it.
• Perform regular reconciliations of your BPOINT payments to ensure you can allocate all payments
• If you receive any payments that you are not expecting or the records do not match any you have on file, refund the payment immediately back onto the card via BPOINT
• As per you merchant refund policy, refunds can only be granted in the method the payment was made eg a card transaction can only be refunded back to the card
• If you receive any emails requesting an overpayment or payment made in error be refunded via account transfer, do not action it. Advise the sender that you will refund the transaction directly back to the card and process it through BPOINT immediately.
• Under no circumstances should you refund the transaction via any other method.

More details on this scam can be found at https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/buying-or-selling/overpayment-scams

If you are concerned that you may have been a victim of this or any other scam, please contact the ADF immediately.

The ADF will be operating as normal in the week beginning the 13^th August 2018, including the gazetted public holiday for Brisbane city, on Wednesday 15^th August 2018.

As the majority of the 2018 direct debits have been received and loaded by the ADF, we recommend that you now review all your direct debits via ADF Online to ensure there are no duplications. Reviewing your debits will ensure that none have been duplicated, which would result in parents being debited twice for payments.

If you locate any duplications, please email directdebits@bne.catholic.net.au with the details of the authority to be cancelled, including the A# number.

Any questions, please contact the ADF on 3324 3777.

The ADF wishes to advise all customers to beware of an invoice email scam that is currently targeting Queensland businesses.

This scam involves scammers pretending to be legitimate suppliers advising changes to payment arrangements or bank account details held on file. The scammer will send an email which is disguised to appear almost identical to the legitimate suppliers’ email advising updated account information and potentially requesting payment.

How the scam works

This is quite a sophisticated scam where the scammers work very hard to make you believe the account details and payment requests are legitimate.

– Scammers hack into supplier email accounts and obtain information including customer lists, bank details and previous invoices.
– Your school or parish is then sent an email which appears as though it is from a known supplier requesting a change to the usual payment details and may also include a request for payment.
– The scammers either disguise the email address they are sending the email from or they have created a new address that appears almost identical to the legitimate one, this is called ‘spoofing’. Spoofed emails can be quite difficult to detect. For example the legitimate address is bob.smith@abctrading.com.au and the spoofed address could be bob.smith@abctrading.com or bob.smith@acbtrading.com.au
– The scam email will also often contain a copy of the suppliers logo, use the same message format and style and in some cases may even include an attachment on company letterhead which they obtained as part of their hack. It may even contain links to websites that are convincing fakes of the suppliers real website.

How to protect your school or parish

There are a number of steps that your business can take to protect yourself from scams of this nature.
1. Ensure your staff are aware of this scam and understand how it works so they can identify it, avoid it and report it.
2. Double check email addresses, if you look closely you should be able to spot a fake.
3. Have a clearly defined process for verifying and payment accounts and invoices which tracks goods/services received and reconcile this to invoices.
4. If you think an email you have received is suspicious, DO NOT reply. You should call the company on contact details that you already have on file or ones you have found in the phone directory, not the ones provided in the email.
5. If the account details provided on the invoice or payment request are different from those used previously, call the company to confirm.

More details on this scam can be found at https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/news/invoice-email-scam-now-targeting-australian-businesses

If you are concerned that you may have been a victim of this or any other scam, please contact the ADF immediately.

Cheque usage and acceptance in Australia has dramatically reduced over a number of years due to faster, more user friendly and secure payment methods being available.

As part of the ADF’s payment technology strategy, we are actively encouraging the closure of cheque facilities and promoting alternative payment methods including EFT, BPAY and Corporate cards. Whilst we have not set a timeframe for the closure of all cheque accounts, our Relationship Managers will begin talking to their customers regarding alternative payment options available to them and the closure of their cheque accounts over the coming months. We will continue to work with our customers to ensure that they have the best payment methods available to meet their needs.

If you would like to discuss your cheque account or alternative payment methods, please contact your Relationship Manager or the ADF.

The ADF office is relocating from 194 Charlotte St, Brisbane to Cathedral House, Level 6, 229 Elizabeth St, Brisbane from 25 September, 2017.

This will mean a more centralised location for our Archdiocesan Departments at Cathedral House.
We endeavour to have our operations and calls to be business as usual on Monday 26th September but please be patient while we settle in and we look forward to you popping in and visiting us!

For many years, the ADF has facilitated the establishment of CBA Corporate Cards for our customers. We also provide ongoing support for the facilities that we have assisted in establishing.

Last week, the ADF, in conjunction with the CBA, launched our new co-branded Corporate Card.

The new card design sees the ADF logo displayed prominently on the Corporate Card for the first time whilst ensuring no other feature of the card has been impacted. This new layout has been designed to ensure the ADF and the assistance we can provide remains front of mind when customers use their Corporate Card.

All new and renewal cards will now be issued with this new design. Please note that current Corporate Cards will not be impacted by this change and you can continue to use your card as per normal. There is no additional cost for the new look card and we encourage you to continue to contact the ADF if you have any card related queries.

What’s new?

• Account screen now displays the full transaction history, getting you more quickly to the information you are looking for.
• Enhanced transaction search functionality is available from the Account screen, including free text search for descriptions, receipt numbers, and cheque withdrawal numbers.
• BPAY displays more meaningful descriptions when searching for billers

Experiencing issues?

• If you are having any issues with ADF after the recent upgrade you may need to clear your browser cache. You can clear the cache for this site by pressing Ctrl-F5 to refresh the page now before logging in. If refreshing the page does not resolve the issue you are experiencing, then please contact the ADF for further assistance.

We have been made aware of an issue with a number of corporate card statements not being generated.

CBA have advised that the statements that were due to be issued mid-August failed, resulting in the summary page being issued but no individual statements being generated. If you have not yet received your individual card statements, you may be impacted by this issue.

We are waiting on further updates from the CBA regarding this issue, however if you require access to your transactions for the month urgently, please contact us and we will enable access to Smart Data Online which will give you access to view all your transactions.

We apologise for any inconvenience that this issue has caused and we will provide additional updates as available.