Woman says crooks stole $32,000 from Fidelity account. This is how it happened

CUMMING, Ga. — A Forsyth County couple said crooks stole $32,000 from their Fidelity account, and all they needed was a six-digit authentication code.

Debra Neal told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray that it appears the criminals already had her financial and personal information.

Fidelity told her while she was on the phone with someone posing as Fidelity fraud protection, an accomplice was on the line with the real Fidelity posing as Debra Neal.

“She said I have some relatives in Florida who were in Hurricane Helene, so I’m going to transfer some money into their accounts. And that’s what they did,” Neal said.

Neal said she got a call from someone claiming to be Fidelity saying her account had been compromised.

The Neals have a credit card and banking and investment accounts with Fidelity.

The person posing as Fidelity told Neal all they needed was the six-digit code being texted to her to confirm her identity.

“It came through on my phone, on my Fidelity thread. So, then I went ahead, and I gave him the six numbers,” Neal said.

But that is when the accomplice used that code to get access to the full account and transfer the money to three other Fidelity accounts.

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The imposter even switched the voice recognition security feature, to her voice.

“She went in and set it up. Her voice, my name. And then she got the six numbers, and she was in,” Neal said.

Channel 2 Action News has reported on similar schemes with other big financial institutions in recent months.

In September, we told you how criminals seemed to know that Marina Camplone’s yearly bonus had just been deposited in her Chase account.

“There was no money in my account, to cover those wire transfers the day before. So, they knew exactly,” Camplone said.

Over the summer, elementary school teacher Emily Willard’s Schwab account was wiped out. Crooks spoofed the bank phone number and also posed as the fraud department.

“They left us with $4.43. It’s like, oh, I can’t even go buy a meal with that,” Willard said.

Fidelity tells Channel 2 Action News they are investigating Neal’s fraud claim and warns they would never asl you to share a security code over the phone.

Writing in a statement, it said customers should be “monitoring accounts frequently for suspicious activity and contacting financial institutions directly should anything out of the ordinary, including phone calls or texts from unknown parties, occur.”

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