A WELLS Fargo customer lost $55,000 from her account following a set of messages she thought was from her bank.
Ashley Willis said her account was drained after scammers posed as her bank through several text messages and phone calls.
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Willis, a small business owner from Daytona Beach, Florida, said she received two text messages that alerted her to suspicious transactions totaling just under $2,000 in value.
She had not approved these and the text messages were in fact from scammers and not her bank, but she did not realize this at the time, according to CBS affiliate WKMG-TV.
The phone number included in the messages was from a real Wells Fargo customer service line however the 10-digit number that texted her was not from the bank.
Wells Fargo confirmed that it only texts customers from short codes and never a 10-digit long number.
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“They caught me off guard, I heard Wells Fargo, I heard money was coming out of my account,” she said
The text message said, ”Reply with your current password for DEACTIVATION,” but the scammers later called Willis and she handed over her bank account code and password.
“I don’t recall exactly what happened but they called me back and I said ‘Well I’m heading to the bank now,’ and they hung up,” she said.
By then it was too late as the fraudsters had access to her account and Willis had lost $55,000 in minutes.
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“It’s very emotional because I just bought into it 100%,” she said.
She added that she felt frustrated by the response from her local Wells Fargo branch when she visited after her money vanished.
“When I cried out for help at the bank and the manager came over I still walked out of there without knowing the extent of the fraud, nobody closed my accounts, and they gave me a sticky note with one phone number on it,” she said.
Willis was given a provisional credit for the debit card charges on the account, which came up to $27,390 and Wells Frago later confirmed that sum was credited to her account.
Wells Fargo gave a statement to WKMG-TV that warned customers about fraudsters.
“We are actively working to raise awareness of common scams to help prevent these heartbreaking incidents through various resources, including ongoing education efforts.”
“If you give a scammer access to your account and they remove funds, you may not be able to get your money back,” Wells Fargo added.
The U.S. Sun has reached out to Wells Fargo for comment.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/10362605/wells-fargo-customer-money-drained-bank-account-scam/