The Expert Podcast

Today, we're going to talk about a new twist on a scam that's been going around for a decade, but this new little version of it has been taking money from people at a much faster rate. We've been getting calls on this for the last few months. There's a very prominent news article that came out today about a very high-profile case. This has to do with a new type of banking scam where scammers and fraudsters are convincing you to transfer money in a way that seems like it's legitimate, but really it's going to them. You might not think you would fall for this, but we've seen business owners, attorneys, and accountants all fall victim to it. It's very easy to prevent as long as you know what you're looking for, and we'll also talk about what to do if this does happen to you.

This scam starts with a phone call. You'll get a telephone call from somebody who claims to be from your bank. They claim to be either the security department from the ATM fraud department or the chargeback department, and they'll tell you that somebody's trying to take your money—some scammer or some hacker is trying to take your money from your account. That's how they start out. They say, "Look, they're actively trying to break into your account. It looks like, you know, your money's at risk. They're going to transfer it within 72 hours or 48 hours. If you don't protect it, we're here to try to protect it." And then they're going to do one of two things. They're either going to tell you to transfer it to a protected account that they've set up for you. "We set up a government-protected secured account, and if you put your money in there, the hackers won't be able to get it," and they'll give you the account number and the routing number, and they tell you to go online and transfer it over or wire transfer it. Obviously, you know what's happening. You're just sending it to them. This new account isn't yours, and it seems simple, and it seems like I would never fall for that, but they play the numbers for these scammers. They'll contact hundreds of thousands of people, and all they need to do is get one or two, and they're home free.

Here's an example of one on the screen you can see right here: a 77-year-old widow lost $661,000 in a common text scam. Remember that word, common? "I realized I'd been defrauded of everything," and they call this a tech support scam. Criminals use cryptocurrency to carry out the fraud. That's not as common anymore, and this happened in 2021, but it's still happening now. The retiree had wired hundreds of thousands of dollars per the suggestion and claimed to be a fraud investigator at PNC Bank, where she was a customer. The action was preventative; the investigator persuaded criminals to use stolen personal data. This is what happens when there's a cyberattack on a company and they get your data from that company. They said that somebody was in the process of stealing her life savings. To protect her money, she had to move it quickly and covertly; divulging the problem to anyone, even children, would compromise her efforts. So this is another thing they'll tell you: don't tell anybody, because if you do, it might keep you from protecting your money.

The other thing they'll do is they'll say, "Look, you don't need to do anything. All we need to do is we need to secure your account. So I'm going to send you a text. When you get that text, read me the number, right?" So you look on your phone, and a text will come through; it'll say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you say, "Yep, it came through, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5." That is what's called your second-factor authentication or two-factor authentication, just like when you log into your bank account, you get a text to make sure it's really you logging in. This person who's calling you is on the other end, logging into your account. They have your username; they're trying to reset your password. But because, in order to reset a password, they need that code, they call you up. So when the code gets sent to you legitimately by your bank, they get it, and now they can reset your password. And not only does it allow them to get into your account, but it also locks you out. So just to review that again, they know your username from your bank because they got it either from hacking someplace where you log in, maybe they bought it on the dark web, maybe they just went through bank logins until they got one that worked, and they found out the phone number. And now they call you up; they don't have the password, though. But to get the password, they get you to tell them how to reset it. They call you up, "Hey, I'm security from, you know, Chase Bank. Your account is being compromised; we need to lock it down. Otherwise, if you don't lock it down within, you know, 15 minutes, all your money's going to be wired away, so I'm going to lock it down for you. Don't worry; you don't have to do anything. I'll send you a text. Text, read me the text, and I'll take care of it for you." They're not sending you the text; it's a bank sending you the text; you're legitimate bank. But when you take that text, it's only supposed to come to you. When you read it to them, you're actually letting them into your inner circle unintentionally. Now they reset your password; they can log in, wire transfer, transfer money, and drain your accounts.

So what do you do if this happens to you? Well, first, as soon as you suspect anything, actually call or, better yet, go directly to your bank. If it's during banking hours and your bank is within a five- or 10-minute drive, go there in person. In person, a lot of times when you call, it takes a while to get through to the right person, and they can't really help you. If you go in person, they can maybe take action faster. Hopefully, you catch it within minutes, hours, or even a day. The first thing you want to do is see if there's an opportunity. You can do what's called the FKS; it's the financial kill system. Banks have a way to kill transactions while they're still in process, and transactions stay in process sometimes for many hours, sometimes overnight. So if they can catch it early enough, they can do a financial kill and kill that transfer. You may also be able to keep a transaction from happening if it was done improperly. Remember, your bank may not help you as much as you think it will. There's a lot of cases where you can look them up where the bank says, "Look, it's your fault for falling for this. We're not getting involved." But if you go there in person, sometimes you'll have better luck. The next thing you want to do is contact government agencies, the police department, and the FBI. Now keep in mind