Man was informed bank could do nothing after $27K scam—a phone call changed his life
While dealing with digital finances is meant to be convenient and easy, one also needs to follow extreme caution throughout. With a rising number of financial scams, there is an added need to be attentive. A man named Dave fell victim to an SMS scam and almost lost $27,000, as reported by 12 News. The man was convinced that he was creating a card to use at the ATM and ended up putting his life savings at stake. A day after he’d made the transfer, he was pushed to analyze and make a phone call and it saved him from a harrowing loss.
It all began with Dave receiving an SMS from a scammer posing as a Bank of America employee, asking whether he had spent $399 recently. Concerned about the message, he replied “No” as instructed by the message. He was given a number to call and was informed that his entire account could be snatched away from him by a scammer. “They sounded like they were from Bank of America. I asked for an ID number. They gave me one of those. Just said, you know, your whole account is in jeopardy," he recalled. Worried as any other would be, he decided to follow the instructions given by the caller.
Since the fraud was posing as the employee of the Bank of America, Dave listened to everything he had to say. He headed straight to the bank and withdrew all of his life savings, totaling $27,000. He was then instructed to use his iPhone and tap into an account and deposit his money at an ATM. “This is my life savings and I don't have any assurances, but they sounded so real," he said. He did as he was told and had no idea that his money was all gone. As he pondered the event throughout the night, something didn’t feel right. Feeling anxious about the huge amount, he called the Bank of America fraud department and enquired the next day. He learned that he had been scammed and lost everything.
The department regretfully informed that there was nothing they could do as he had already made the deposit. Dave made one last phone call to the Peoria Police Department. The detective, Michael Finney, who was on his day off at the time, decided to jump into the case. He hurried with the process as there was only a 72-hour window before everything was lost. "If it's reported in under 72 hours, the likelihood of getting it back, I would say, is greater than 50 or 60%. If it goes over that time frame, to be fair, I've maybe retrieved one successfully and it wasn't even the whole dollar amount," Finney said. The detective added that the chances are lower than 10%.
Without wasting time, Finney got to work and learned how the facade took place. “I'd never seen this before: a scannable card in his wallet to activate the ATM, to turn it into a direct account-to-account portal. So as soon as he took his cash that he had just withdrawn and started sticking in the $100 bills, they started immediately uploading to the fraudster's account," Finney explained. The detective immediately got the details, froze the accounts and began an intensive search. After 5 months of hard work, around 90% of the money Dave had lost came back to him. The man is eternally grateful and is determined to be more cautious and share his story to protect and caution others.
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