Marina del Rey, California – A Marina del Rey couple is breathing a sigh of relief just before Christmas with a Wells Fargo refund after their life savings were wiped from their bank accounts last week.
Although their money was returned, they want to raise awareness about hidden fraudulent accounts that are being used to steal money.
James and Diana shared a screenshot of their Wells Fargo account showing eight consecutive transfer transactions on Tuesday, December 13, with a total value of $68,000.
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The couple, who only wish to reveal their first identities, said they were notified the next morning that their savings account had reached $0.
“I log into our account and see that our entire savings account has been depleted and most of our checking accounts have been depleted,” said James.
He said a fraudulent account was set up years ago using his wife’s personal information and went unnoticed.
James also said that someone then used it to take their money without it being reported by Wells Fargo.
“Now if you lose $40 or $50, you’ll hear something,” said James. “But when you lose all your savings and have these very suspicious amounts coming in one after another and you don’t hear about it; that was very strange.”
Now the couple wants to know how this happened.
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“I don’t trust the bank that our checking and savings accounts will be safe from further fraud,” said Diana.
“Criminals are at their highest level just as they try to take your money,” said Brian Gilhooly, the special agent in charge of the FBI.
Stolen identity information can make it easier for thieves to access your account, Gilhooly said.
He urges everyone to change his login information often.
“Having an up-to-date, strong password and changing it frequently would prevent or change and limit access if someone created a dummy account or had access to your account, by changing the password they wouldn’t be able to access that account,” Gilhooly said. .
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Meanwhile, Wells Fargo released the following statement regarding the couple’s incident.
“After conducting the review, we are happy to resolve this issue for our customers. We are sorry for the inconvenience and concern our customers experienced as we know that situations like this can greatly impact those affected. We have a very extensive fraud program dedicated to protecting our customers and conduct a thorough investigation process to look through all reports of account fraud and identity theft. When we confirm fraud on an account, we take action to prevent fraudulent activity and compensate the fraud victim.”
The FBI warns that people over the age of 60 are most vulnerable to this type of scam.
Gilhooly encourages people to set up alerts from your banks so that they are notified when there is unusual activity.
The FBI requests that anyone who believes they may be a victim of cybercrime visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
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