Bank Fraud - Anyone Who Can Help......

[selmaborntidefan]

Okay, let me lay out what happened for everyone.

On Columbus Day, I got a text message while sitting in my hotel that an attempted purchase had been made at Cal San Luis Obsipo (or wherever) using my debit card number, was it me? The moment that I typed "no," my card was shut off, and I was instructed to call my credit union the next day for help getting a new card. Obviously, I had to wait and this caused an issue since my child was also using it in Atlanta and had no other money, but we finessed it.

The above is crucial to understanding what happened next - because it provides context.

The following Monday morning, my phone hit with a text asking if I had attempted a Best Buy purchase in Dallas (e.g. back home) for $76, and I said no. The text then told me my account had been frozen, and I would get a call in moments as to what to do about this. (Those of you familiar with phishing can, I guess, skip to the questions).

The phone rang immediately, and the person pretended to be my bank. I was told that my account was frozen and an investigation ongoing - so not to use it until the investigation was complete. I decided - smart move on my part despite all my dumb ones - to fly back to Texas for the next few days to see what was going on. While I was on the flight from Denver to Dallas, the credit union attempted to contact me and left a message. By the time I landed, of course, they were closed. Bear in mind that my email was showing that and attempted sign-on to my account had occurred - but of course this was AFTER talking to me on the phone.

The next morning, I called the number and was informed a $5,000 withdrawal to Truist Bank had occurred, and had I approved it. Well, I never do transactions THAT big without going in in person. I told her no, and she told me they had passed it through and my account was compromised.

WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU SEND THROUGH A FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR TRANSACTION AND THEN CALL ME ABOUT IT???

We literally had to close all my accounts and open new ones with the credit union and - I promise you - the moment I sat down in the restaurant with some booze, my phone pinged again with the exact same scam.

So fast forward to this week.

The credit union informs me they have received a check from the other bank for $2500 to reimburse me half?

DO I HAVE TO ACCEPT THIS RESOLUTION???

I know I don't know much about banking, but to me the mere fact they sent the money but were suspicious ought to play a big role in this. What's weird is I was actually madder about getting hoodwinked with a childish scam than I was losing $5K.

But am I totally screwed out of the other half? I mean, them making it sound like they did something out of the goodness of their bought for the highest dollar heart doesn't exactly set well. And I guess I could go pay a lawyer $15K to get back my other 2500.

Anyone who knows???

Sorry, this was not easy to share, but now that I only got half of my bucks back, I'm not exactly happy.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Sorry, I can't help, but man I hate thieves...

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Has this escalated beyond the branch level? A lot of banks and credit unions are limited from what they can do at that level and anything beyond needs corporate or upper management approval. Take it as high as it will go. Make threats (and not the threats that involve explosives, mind you. That's a good way to completely ruin your day.) Threats to close accounts can be particularly effective if you are highly invested there beyond a checking account. Threaten with online reviews or even talk about going to the media. Just make sure you're talking to someone of consequence, not some bored teller who could care less.

 

[BhamToTexas]

I agree with Jazz above. I am not sure I have any other advice.

But I do find it strange that the other bank who doesn't have your business would send over half and your bank that has and wants your business won't offer anything? Is that because the larger bank and your credit union have different types of insurance?

 

[tusks_n_raider]

I'm not sure about a Credit Unions type of Insurance but most Banks are FDIC insured.

What that means in simplest terms is that each Depositor has $250,000 dollars worth of coverage per account type.

It's not your fault that somebody stole your money.

I've had my main account compromised a few times and all I did was go to the bank and go over the transactions with an Account Manager and they refunded me all of the funds and changed my account number and issued new cards.

I would think a reputable Credit Union would operate in a similar fashion.

I would raise as big a stink about it as possible to get them to refund the entire amount in full.

I worked at a Bank part time while I put myself through my last two years of College and I can tell you that most of the time the Branch manager bent over backwards to make sure that long standing customers were taken care of and especially if they had a substantial amount of funds deposited.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to push the issue further and to the point of threating to withdrawal all funds and take your business elsewhere.

If it's better for them to have your money they will take a short term loss to keep you.

 

[crimsonaudio]

I'm not sure about a Credit Unions type of Insurance but most Banks are FDIC insured.

Not a banker but doesn't FDIC only cover your funds from bank failure? I don't think it helps with fraud / theft.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

Not a banker but doesn't FDIC only cover your funds from bank failure? I don't think it helps with fraud / theft.

Ah you may be right and I could be misremembering.

I thought it covered all deposited funds but maybe that’s just for failure.

I would think they have some type of fraud insurance coverage though.

I had about $1,500 of fraudulent charges on my Checking account a few years ago and they put stop payments on everything and reimbursed me every cent and I’m not a high balance customer at all.

I’ve never heard of someone only getting a partial refund.

I just hope Selma can get it resolved because that’s just not right for a Bank or Credit union to let something like that clear but hold the customer at fault.

 

[Its On A Slab]

Guantanamo should remain open for perpetrators of this kind of bank fraud and virus ransoms. Waterboarding, klieg lights and Taylor Swift blasted in their cells 24/7. No chance at parole.

 

[75thru79]

Banks and credit unions are entirely different. Banks have a profit motive and are always looking at the bottom line. In the case of fraud like this they will often make a customer whole, even though they are not required to by law. Credit unions are customer-owned and not always as strong financially. They might want to make you whole but may feel like they can't afford to. It certainly wouldn't hurt to escalate your issue to upper management or possibly go to the local TV station in hopes they can shame the CU into helping you.

This is one of the reasons I never use a debit card. If this had been a credit card you would only be liable for $50 and the banks would have to give you the rest back.

Also, please everyone. Do not ever talk to a "banker" or "account representative" about your finances to anyone you did not initiate the conversation with. If someone contacts you, hang up, call the customer service number for your bank and tell them the issue.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Also, please everyone. Do not ever talk to a "banker" or "account representative" about your finances to anyone you did not initiate the conversation with. If someone contacts you, hang up, call the customer service number for your bank and tell them the issue.

Yep.

But as noted above: I never would have fallen for this except the FIRST inquiry was legit on the debit card.

 

[Padreruf]

Yep.

But as noted above: I never would have fallen for this except the FIRST inquiry was legit on the debit card.

This makes me curious that there's something going on with the CU personnel. Is it possible an employee leaked to another that your card had been compromised and they worked the scam from there? Did someone hack the CU's data bank?

There is too much "coincidence" going on here for this to be "just coincidence."

 

[JDCrimson]

There is no fraud insurance for banks or credit unions. If they cover any loss, they are accepting the loss themselves either under Reg E or good customer or member service.

For the record, credit unions are generally more capitalized than banks, less risk adverse than banks because their profit margins are less than banks. Credit unions are insured by the NCUA which has a far superior loss ratio for insuring deposits in credit union failures as compared to the FDIC loss ratio insuring banks.

It's unlikely that a credit union employee is involved in this theft. I don't think you realize the extent your financial information is available for sale on the dark web. The Equifax and AT&T breaches are relatively recent significant breaches where where customer PII and payment information was breached. Spear phishing and AI enabled fraud have increased significantly over the last couple of years. Skimming is old technology. Fraudster use AI algorithms to create card numbers and then present transactions through those card numbers, thousands per minute. This is how you can have fraud on a card you have never used.

Banks and credit unions used to make good on any type of fraud sustained by customers or member in the vein of good service. But the volume of fraud losses has gotten so extreme that FIs are having to push back customer enabled fraud. The fraud losses even for even small institutions can run hundreds of thousands even millions within a year. Customers are bring required to be more diligent in not succumbing to uninitiated requests for financial information.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

The key question is how the scammer convinced the CU to make the transfer.

If the scammer got hold of your legitimate password, pass code or whatever other credentials are necessary to access your account, and used that to make the transfer, the CU isn't liable. They might reimburse you to maintain goodwill, but they're not legally required to do that.

If the scammer somehow convinced the CU to do it despite not having the required access credentials, the CU is on the hook for the full amount.

Generally speaking, Credit Unions are smaller and don't have the security apparatus or personnel training that banks do. So people in the CU branch might not understand all that. Higher-ups likely do.

If the scammer didn't use legitimate access credentials and the CU still refuses to make the full $5K good, tell them that you don't want to escalate, but they're leaving you no choice. If they don't make you whole within 24 hours, your only remaining option will be to pursue legal remedies. They'll be hearing from your attorney. And if it comes to that, you'll be going after legal fees in addition to the fraudulent transfer.

Delivering the message in a calm, measured tone will make more of an impression than an emotional rant, and is more likely to focus their attention a bit better.

And JD's absolutely right...deposit insurance (whether NCUA or FDIC) doesn't cover fraud. It insures depositors against loss in the event the institution goes belly up.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

If the scammer got hold of your legitimate password, pass code or whatever other credentials are necessary to access your account, and used that to make the transfer, the CU isn't liable. They might reimburse you to maintain goodwill, but they're not legally required to do that.

This explains all I need to know.

The CU - when I was opening the new account - asked my sign-on and password and said (politely) might I add that I should probably make it much more difficult, this despite the fact every password I've had for years has numbers and symbols - but the key point being there were straight-on WORDS between them.

(Again - the part confusing me is the fact it struck the CU as a suspiciously large transaction; I've had this same CU refuse debits for tiny amounts online, sending me a text message).

OK, lesson learned the hard way on my part.
Appreciate it, 4Q.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

A local CU here had an internal problem. One client of mine had $150K removed from an account (I'm over-simplifying) the month her husband passed. They reimbursed the account in stages, over months, which hints that they may have been dealing with many sizeable losses. I use the same CU for one credit card. While were in Escondido, CA a couple of months ago, a chain drugstore declined my "go-to" Amex card and demanded Visa. Well, with me, I just had the CU Visa CC and my debit card. I had left other cards at home. No way was I going to use the debit card, so I used the CU CC. When we got back home, I checked the account and it was compromised, so I contacted the CU, which had farmed out the fraud investigation function. I went through an exercise where I was prompted to press "1" for legit transaction and "2" for theft. It was easy, since it's a lightly-used card. The funny one was the last transaction for a "Kardia" ECG device for $99, funny because I already had one. In email exchange with the fraud official, I pointed this out and offered to provide proof of purchase from Amazon. I soon received a letter saying they had fully reimbursed me and had closed the matter.

Another humorous incident happened in the Amsterdam airport, Schiphol. We decided to grab lunch there and my usual card wouldn't clear. I offered another, but the server kept insisting it must be his fault. Finally, I followed him back to the card machine and made him take another card, which cleared. I called the bank when I got back home to get to the bottom of it. I had notified them before leaving that I would have transactions in Switzerland, France and Holland. Who would have ever thought that an airport restaurant in Amsterdam would bank through Ireland?