ATLANTA — An Atlanta woman said crooks cleared her bank account the day after her yearly bonus was deposited.
Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray reported on WSB Tonight at 11 p.m. on Saturday that the criminals posed as the bank to steal the money.
Marina Camplone realized something was going wrong as it was happening and rushed to a Buckhead Chase bank branch where a teller wrote account information on a Post-it and told her to run across the street.
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The criminals were wiring the money to a Wells Fargo account so Camplone also rushed there trying to stop it.
“I feel like I should have had it at home in an envelope somewhere in a box under the mattress,” she said.
Camplone noticed fraudulent charges all over the country multiple times over several months from her Chase debit card.
“I said ‘should I close the account? What’s going on?’ And they said no, we’re gonna just reissue your debit card. You’ll be fine,” she said.
So, when someone claiming to be a Chase fraud representative called her from the same number that was on the back of her debit card, she took the call.
“He said, that he saw some fraudulent activity on my account, in the amount of $17,900 to, wire transfers,” she said.
Camplone does not usually have that kind of money in her bank account.
“The thing that got my attention, obviously, is that I usually don’t have that balance on my checking account, but I was expecting the next day a direct deposit from my payroll, which included my yearly bonus...and it was almost identical to what they stole,” she said.
The person gave her a code and said they’d call back the next day if the alleged fraud was going through, and when they did, she walked through what she thought were steps to protect her account.
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She was actually giving the criminals access to it.
“There was no money in my account, to cover those wire transfers the day before,” she said.
As she was on the phone with the crooks, Camplone realized what was happening, called Chase on her other phone, then rushed into a branch to try and stop it.
Chase won’t refund the money, telling her she approved $17,900 in wire transfers.
Chase told Channel 2 Action News, “Our customer fell victim to a scam. Consumers should always be suspicious of people asking them to send money to prevent fraud. Banks won’t make these requests, but scammers will.”
Wells Fargo, where the money was wired to accounts, said, “When we identify or are alerted to fraudulent activity, we take action. We have a thorough process to investigate all reports of account fraud and scams.”
Chase says criminals are regularly spoofing numbers so they can call and text looking like banks.
The best advise is to hang up and call back directly or go into a branch.
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