All her savings were gone. She called wanting my help to recover her money, but I couldn’t. She fell for a scam that went like this:
“Hello, this is Joe from [HER BANK]. We detected fraud.”
She responded, and they had her on the hook.
SCAMMER: “I need you to share your login information so I can help.”
She provided her private login details.
SCAMMER: “Can I have the code they sent you?”
She agreed. The scammer accessed her accounts and convinced her to transfer money into new accounts. He continued talking to her, learning she had other accounts, and got her to send multiple cashier’s checks, claiming he was protecting that money too. This took about a month.
He warned her not to tell anyone and sent her articles about bankers who had stolen money.
She didn’t tell anyone until she went to pay her house payment and found no money in her account. The bank didn’t have the new account number she’d given. She was convinced the bank had stolen her money until detectives informed her about this scam. The phone number the scammer used was a burner phone, and the address for the cashier’s checks was a mailbox in San Francisco, now closed. Who knows where her money is.
Your bank won’t call you! If you receive a call like this, hang up immediately! If you’re concerned, visit the bank branch and speak to a live person.
