https://abc7.com/amp/oceanside-orange-county-scammers-wire-transfer-scam/13189471/
12 replies (most recent on top)
Extra scrutiny is required when wiring money out of the country. WFC is SUPPOSED to know their customer and know what the transaction is for.
It takes SEASONED EMPLOYEES to do it right, not just go through the motions or pre-determined checks as set by WFC. SEASONED EMPLOYEES ask the right questions, develop instincts based on past experiences, dig a little further, escalate potential problems. Anyone here actually pay attention to the Elder Financial Exploitation annual training?
That is an unfortunate scam. If I were planning a big purchase then I could very well transfer the money from my savings to my checking first so that isn't an unusual pattern. The only way then bank would have known the intent was to refund an unintentional deposit and then would have said, you don't have any unintentional deposits.
FYI, this is actually a common scam from the people that trick you into calling "tech support" with one of those virus scares or the renewal alerts saying call to cancel. If you let them remote into your machine to "help you with the refund" then they quickly do a transfer for a larger amount (ex. $7500.00) instead of ($75.00) but it is from your savings rather that from them. Then they show you the deposit of your "refund" and freak out because they "accidently" forgot the decimal and sent you too much. They are about to get fired now unless you are kind and send back the overage. They have a family, you are nice, please do the right thing....
@1cjr WF DOES have these flags. It’s called the outsort environment and we are NOT obligated to do it. It’s a courtesy and once that happens, we connect with the customer. If they confirm they want to send it, we let it go through. If we hold money, customers are upset. If we don’t, customers are upset. 🤷
@hba No. What is unusual about it? That they are wiring money when they normally don’t? And? People often never wire then buy a house or invest overseas. Bankers are trained to have a conversation while doing the wire which includes if they know where/who they are sending money to. At the end of the day, this is not WF’s money. The customer can and did do exactly what they intended to do.
Exactly what Post ID: @hba+1mlx4KMU pointed out. This transaction should have been flagged and questioned. A bank the size of Wells Fargo should have all possible triggers built in to the system to red flag and slow down a transaction such as this.
Multiple red flags here: elderly couple, foreign hacker gained access to a US account and WFC can’t detect that?, “know your customer”, unusual activity, large amount of money wired to a foreign country.
Problem is that our systems are outdated, experienced employees have been laid off, and I’ll put good money on this transaction being approved somewhere in India.
I hope they sue.
Wouldn't a transaction like this fall under the "unusual account activity" category and be investigated before transferring the money.
FRTO, now and forever.
I'd be curious if in fact the banker discouraged them, but the client insisted. Or maybe they did it online?
Read the article. This was caused by this couple being greedy and making money. It is not Wells Fargo doing anything wrong. People have to be accountable for their own stupid mistakes.
It's not the responsibility of Wells Fargo or any other bank to make sure customers don't make id--tic decisions.
Who cares? Why is this posted on a layoff board?