Fraud and identity theft just a heads up

[Russ Smith]

I woke up Thur Morning 11-8 and my gmail inbox was just flooded with spam emails. They were still coming in and many of them were sayign thanks for registering for this or that, many in French etc. I started reporting them as spam but I had to go to work. At lunch I googled it and read that often when someone does something nefarious, they flood your email so that you don't see the legit email from your bank etc warning you something had happened. Called Wells Fargo, nothing weird, checked Capital One accounts, all good.

About 4 pm my sister texted me, someone withdraw 200 bucks from our joint credit union account it's fraud. Got home and looked and they'd also withdrawn 1000 bucks from my savings account at the credit union, which was REALLY odd since there was only $7.57 in the account! Called them up and while dealing with it all changed all my passwords, logins and the accounts that weren't already 2 factor now are.

They said p2p had been used and it turns out it was Zelle. Checking Zelle I did indeed find a message that morning in my email from Zelle thanking me for signing up. I didn't, I already had with Wells Fargo but NOT with the credit union. Wells Fargo said my zelle was disabled probably due to lack of use but it appears it was actually because Zelle flagged it from the credit union.

So apparently how they did it, they took 2 fake 500 dollar checks, using Zelle they took pics and used the zelle app to deposit 500 into my savings and 500 into the joint checking which had 205 dollars already. Then transferred the 500 from joint to my savings, withdrew 200 from the joint and withdrew the fake 1000 from my savings. They got the 1200. The credit union is covering it of course, they say my online banking was compromised, they don't know how. Didn't get anything else that I've found, all other accounts everywhere are fine. We both signed up for Lifelock anyways. Credit Union insists our social security info is NOT exposed it's not in the access they had, I'm skeptical. They did say remember they could have hacked your online by first getting information off the dark web.

First Tech Credit union. What made it doubly bizarre, a lifelong friend had recently told me that a teller at teh branch my sister and I had to go into today, was caught stealing money from his 80 year old moms account, and there were other victims. she's been arrested but my sister and I both wonder now if this was an inside job and that's why the 2 fake checks were deposited and then withdrawn as actual money without having to clear?

 

[Linderbee]

Damn. I'm so glad banks are generally pretty good nowadays about covering fraud. We watch all of our accounts pretty closely but I'll definitely be on the lookout for tons of junk in my email as a warning. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Russ Smith]

The longer this goes the more lucky I feel and the more alarmed I am at the lack of security at First Tech CU. Only 1 of the 2 fraudulent checks has come back bounced so far. They insist it has no bearing on my credit score but my account is still locked. We went in Saturday today again but they can only do so much until the fraud group is done. They clearly don't think we did anything wrong they just can't reopen our accounts until it's all settled. Still nobody has explained how it's possible to register an account with zelle, deposit 2 fake checks with a phone app, and then literally a minute later go to an ATM and withdraw the money from the fake check with no hold or anything on the checks.

 

[Zeno]

This type of stuff pisses me off. Can't stand scammers and thieves.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

This type of stuff pisses me off. Can't stand scammers and thieves.

Right? If many people spent nearly the time and energy on a positively focused job that they do in criminal behavior they would likely find success.

 

[Russ Smith]

The crazy thing is my account just got unlocked Tuesday. It took that long. They now want me to pick another new login and password and use 2 factor. Frankly I'm not reactivating my online with them. Yes it was apparently my email that got hacked that led to this but the lack of security on their part makes it clear I don't want to do online business there.

When I had to go in for the 3rd time to sign notarized paperwork which basically was them finally conceding I was the victim of fraud not actively involved in it, I had $105 in the account they reinstated. I didn't want it all so I asked him to give me 100 in cash and just keep the 5 to keep the account active. he did. Later that day my sister texted me asking about it because they'd withdrawn the 100 from HER savings account, not the joint checking she and I shared! So after all this, he screwed up and withdrew from an account he should never have been looking at since it was me, not my sister who was onsite at the credit union.