Bank account hack

[dioxide45]

Please contact your local police department and your nearest field office of the FBI. TODAY

This is certainly a good thing to do, but likely fruitless and the scammers know that. FOr the most part they are out of the reach of the FBI. They also start up operations in foreign countries using fake names and spoofed phone numbers. The FBI apparently has bigger problems than protecting every day American's from being scammed, so the best prevention is simply education.

 

[rapmarks]

Isnt It probable that malware was imbedded in a link in one of the supposed mcafee emails.

i have a step brother in law that constantly sends emails with just links Mostly to his extremist political sites. I don’t open them, but I did almost ten years ago when he was supposed to send me real estate information for my aunts estate. The next day I got hacked. His emails go straight to trash.

 

[pedro47]

This is certainly a good thing to do, but likely fruitless and the scammers know that. FOr the most part they are out of the reach of the FBI. They also start up operations in foreign countries using fake names and spoofed phone numbers. The FBI apparently has bigger problems than protecting every day American's from being scammed, so the best prevention is simply education.

In order to be refunded by the bank a police report must be on file.
Secondly, the FBI Field Office will only give her a telephone number to call the federal agency that will have handle or look into this matter..

The FBI will not become involve .

Have the bank fraud unit reach out to her to ascertain any information ?

 

[dioxide45]

Isnt It probable that malware was imbedded in a link in one of the supposed mcafee emails.

i have a step brother in law that constantly sends emails with just links Mostly to his extremist political sites. I don’t open them, but I did almost ten years ago when he was supposed to send me real estate information for my aunts estate. The next day I got hacked. His emails go straight to trash.

It's possible. Malware would likely be some type of keyboard logger vs someone actually controlling the computer and moving her mouse. Moving of the mouse is usually remote desktop software that is actually used in legitimate corporate or tech support operations. Unfortunately many unscrupulous folks use it too.

Sady, much of the reason for the issue doesn't matter. The money is likely gone. Preventing the issue in the future is key.

 

[rapmarks]

In order to be refunded by the bank a police report must be on file.
Secondly, the FBI Field Office will only give her a telephone number to call the federal agency that will have handle or look into this matter..

The FBI will not become involve .

Have the bank fraud unit reach out to her to ascertain any information ?

Sound liked there is more to this story. IMHO.

Yes she has called the police department, and she has filed fraud information with the fraud department at the bank. What do you think I am hiding, get sick of the insinuations. Yes she is not very bright, as a teacher I can tell you have the population is not very bright, are you like the other poster on this site that believes she is Not worth living. She isn’t getting any financial assistance from the government she isn’t being supported by taxpayers.

 

[rapmarks]

It's possible. Malware would likely be some type of keyboard logger vs someone actually controlling the computer and moving her mouse. Moving of the mouse is usually remote desktop software that is actually used in legitimate corporate or tech support operations. Unfortunately many unscrupulous folks use it too.

Sady, much of the reason for the issue doesn't matter. The money is likely gone. Preventing the issue in the future is key.

Correct.

 

[dioxide45]

In order to be refunded by the bank a police report must be on file.
Secondly, the FBI Field Office will only give her a telephone number to call the federal agency that will have handle or look into this matter..

The FBI will not become involve .

Have the bank fraud unit reach out to her to ascertain any information ?

Sound liked there is more to this story. IMHO.

It is very unlikely the bank will refund the money, even with a police report. A police report at least creates a record of the fraud, but law enforcement simply doesn't have the resources to go after these scammers.

 

[DrQ]

Banks will only refund money if you can prove that a third party accessed funds without authorization.

If a third party gains access to valid credentials, they consider that an authorized transaction. If it is caught, they can make a best effort to recover the funds, but they are not usually held liable.

 

[Tia]

A banker once recommended we not keep so much $ in checking, suggested moving into a savings acct. Maybe this would of helped prevent this??

 

[DrQ]

A banker once recommended we not keep so much $ in checking, suggested moving into a savings acct. Maybe this would of helped prevent this??

Savings can be accessed by wire transfers.

 

[davidvel]

She has no maid that is what the scammer put on the transfer. My sister has income off about 15000 a year, no maids, a twenty year old car

she got an email from mcafee that her payment was due. Three days later she got another email from mcafee but probably a scammer that 387 was being deducted from her account. She called about it. They must have already known her account number. She had checked her account to see if they had deducted 387

We all feel sorry for you, but you posted to make people aware, so the facts matter.

You originally posted "I am on an account with my sister and her account was debited $9700 wire transfer to Bangkok Thailand with the notation sending money to my maid. " It is curious how scammers would know your maid's name. Does your sister know your maid's name? It also makes me think that maybe someone convinced your sister to wire the money, not that scammers directly did it. This is a wide spread scam.

 

[Janann]

It is curious how scammers would know your maid's name. Does your sister know your maid's name?

The OP has posted that a notation was made on the wire to make it look legit, but her sister does NOT have a maid, either in the U.S. or anywhere.

 

[rapmarks]

We all feel sorry for you, but you posted to make people aware, so the facts matter.

You originally posted "I am on an account with my sister and her account was debited $9700 wire transfer to Bangkok Thailand with the notation sending money to my maid. " It is curious how scammers would know your maid's name. Does your sister know your maid's name? It also makes me think that maybe someone convinced your sister to wire the money, not that scammers directly did it. This is a wide spread scam.

There is no maid. They must have felt that was a good thing on the notation. They made up the maid. My god how many people that you know have maids, certainly a different socioeconomic class

 

[geekette]

There is no maid. They must have felt that was a good thing on the notation. They made up the maid. My god how many people that you know have maids, certainly a different socioeconomic class

I'd say a maid getting nearly 10k is a different stratosphere. I generally think of maids as tv people (Alice from Brady Bunch, Hazel, etc)

 

[Tia]

Makes me wonder about my own banks process on something like this , as in profiling 'typical' account activity and if they'd call me to verify before

Before I retired I worked for a major international bank. I helped design and implement wire transfers across country borders and to exchange currencies. I will agree the OP should implement 2 factor authentication for their account. But, the bank has some culpability here as well. There's a series of checks that need to be passed before the transfer is allowed to be executed. One of those checks includes profiling the customer's "typical" account activity. Based upon the OP's description this type of activity would be outside their typical account activity. The OP should have been contacted by the bank to verify the transaction was initiated by them before processing.

 

[davidvel]

There is no maid. They must have felt that was a good thing on the notation. They made up the maid. My god how many people that you know have maids, certainly a different socioeconomic class

I thought you meant it had your maid's name (yes I now know none of you have a maid), not that it literally said "sending to my maid." That is even more juvenile and suspicious than putting someone's name.

I still am curious about the bank's position on refund. I would expect if an account was hacked they would, but if essentially turned over voluntarily (even if erroneously), they would not.

 

[klpca]

I still am curious about the bank's position on refund. I would expect if an account was hacked they would, but if essentially turned over voluntarily (even if erroneously), they would not.

In this day and age with the fraud issues with wire transfers you would think that there would be some kind of attempt to verify a wire, especially in an account where this is an unusual transaction. It feels like it should be the minimum standard practice.

 

[rapmarks]

To be extra careful,nincalled my broker, no they will not accept an email and I’ll verify. My main checking account, they will only send it in person, I have not called my chase account, I want to go in in person as I know they send it.

 

[rapmarks]

Sounds like a possible Refund Scam. Is it possible that she actually initiated the wire and is too embarrassed to say it? What these refund scammers do is they pretend they need to refund you money for something. They take control of the computer by having the person install some downloaded software. There is no way they could have controlled the mouse unless she downloaded this software. They then ask the person to enter the amount to refund and they make it look like the person accidentally entered a HUGE amount of money. But it is all faked by manipulating the appearance of the amount of money on the screen that they are controlling. They scammer then says they will be in a lot of trouble if they don't get the money back and they either have the person buy gift cards or wire money. The wire and gift cards are real, the amount of money used to manipulate the person is not.

Search YouTube for Scam Baiting and you will see lots of videos about how this works and people doing fine work by preventing these scammers (mostly in India) from ripping people off. Sadly it happens all too often.

I think this was it. My sister is not very bright The bank is telling her not to file the fraud papers. It sounds like they told her she was due a $100 refund from McAfee.

 

[bogey21]

My guess is that if your Sister initiated the wire herself (at someone's request), the Bank will do nothing. If someone somehow got into her account and initiated the wire, I see the Bank being a touch more interested but in the end will do nothing...

George

 

[rapmarks]

My guess is that if your Sister initiated the wire herself (at someone's request), the Bank will do nothing. If someone somehow got into her account and initiated the wire, I see the Bank being a touch more interested but in the end will do nothing...

George

No she says they filled out the wire request. She was on her computer and checking her account when they called, the curser was moving, and they knew her account number. It is still fraud if the number was changed. Bank may not be liable but it is fraud. It happened at 2:03 I was on the phone at 2:10 and the fraud specialist said I got on on time to stop the transfer. Transfer went through at 2:33. I am on the account with her

 

[elaine]

I Asked one bank and they said we have to come in person to make a WT. we were actually the making a WT and they have a check list and confirm that we’d verified verbally the correct bank account number with settlement agent.
she also said a lot of scams use zelle now and they limited zelle transactions to maybe $1k/day.
I’m sorry for your sister. thank you for posting. We’re going to check our other banks as well and put funds in those that require in person WT.

 

[davidvel]

No she says they filled out the wire request. She was on her computer and checking her account when they called, the curser was moving, and they knew her account number. It is still fraud if the number was changed. Bank may not be liable but it is fraud. It happened at 2:03 I was on the phone at 2:10 and the fraud specialist said I got on on time to stop the transfer. Transfer went through at 2:33. I am on the account with her

They filled it out but she was logged into account, and then they called? "The number was changed"? I'm lost again, oh well.

 

[rapmarks]

They filled it out but she was logged into account, and then they called? "The number was changed"? I'm lost again, oh well.

They called her supposedly about her bill a second or third time they called her and it was just when she went online to check her account. She says the curser was moving without her. Somehow malware was on her computer. It doesn’t make sense, and it makes no sense that she didn’t hang up. They said she owed money, they would take care of it, they would deduct a hundred from her checking account. but it was 9700 not 100

 

[presley]

Isnt It probable that malware was imbedded in a link in one of the supposed mcafee emails.

It sounds like a keylogger was downloaded when she clicked the link. That really sucks. I rarely click links in emails because of stuff like that, no matter how legit they look. At this point, the very few times I'll click a link is when I am expecting a follow up survey to something that I did. Even then, it's pretty rare that I'll do the survey just because I have to click a link and I think all companies should know that asking people to click a link in an email is ridiculous at this point.

In this day and age with the fraud issues with wire transfers you would think that there would be some kind of attempt to verify a wire, especially in an account where this is an unusual transaction. It feels like it should be the minimum standard practice.

I agree with you, but there are still some that don't. I changed some bank accounts and credit cards recently because some of mine didn't offer 2 step authorization. I don't trust any banks or companies to verify that I am me without 2 step.

I think this was it. My sister is not very bright The bank is telling her not to file the fraud papers. It sounds like they told her she was due a $100 refund from McAfee.

When I recently closed an American express card, I waited a couple months for them to send me my refund due for the annual fee. Since it seemed like they were never going to send it, I called and they said they could only refund it to my bank account. I had a bank account linked to the card for payments and they just verified the last few numbers of the account and asked if that was a good account to send it to. As paranoid as I was at the time, I said yes because I knew that I already had my account linked and I was the one who called them. The money was back in my bank account the next day. I'm only sharing this because I can see where she may have thought it was legit.

Did she have someone go through her computer? If the person is good, they might be able to tell her what was installed (if anything) and give her a better idea of how to protect herself.
I remember decades ago when we were told to not keep a stack of cash in our wallets because it would be pickpocketed. It's way safer to do that these days.