Fraudulent claims shuts ACC online service down

ACC clients face a frustrating wait while the corporation deals with a number of fraud cases, prompting the suspension of its online self-service.

A number of clients contacted Chris Lynch Media after being unable to access their ‘MyACC’ account.

 ACC Chief Executive Megan Main said ACC was managing an issue of apparent fraudulent access to some accounts in its self-service online platform, MyACC.

“The people behind the apparent fraud appear to have used MyACC to submit fraudulent travel re-imbursement claims to ACC for financial gain.

“The fraud was picked up after ACC initially detected a small number of unusual transactions.”

Main said it appeared likely to have been perpetuated by several people.

“At this stage it seems that a large proportion of those committing the apparent fraud were using their own MyACC account, or the accounts of others who had shared identity information with them.

“There is currently no evidence that ACC’s cyber security has been compromised. Our investigations are ongoing.” 

Overall, ACC has identified up to 500 MyACC accounts that have recently changed their personal details, which are being investigated.

All of the clients associated with these accounts have either been contacted, or contact has been attempted on multiple occasions.

“We’re deeply disappointed at the actions of the perpetrators of this apparent fraud and understand this news will be unsettling for our clients. 

“On discovering the issue, we shut down MyACC and began an urgent forensic investigation, working with external experts to determine more about the perpetrators and the possible original source of the identity information that was used.”

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been notified of the issue, along with the police. 

“We will turn MyACC back on as soon as we can.”

“We ask our clients to be patient with our customer teams who are doing the best they can to manually manage aspects of claims that would normally be processed online through our MyACC platform.

“We are working hard to support any clients who are impacted.”