Phone Scam ...

[Chester32141]

My mother spent 4 hours on the phone today giving her bank names and account numbers and balances to "Publishers Clearinghouse" so they could deposit her winnings directly .... I didn't find out about it until a couple minutes ago ... about to go online to learn the answer to the burning question of "Are there any bank regulations that replace  money taken directly from checking via a scam " ... does anyone know the answer ?

There is a lot of money involved since mom recently had several CDs mature and was accumulating them in the two accounts looking for a better rate ...

[230RN]

Oh, damn.  Is she a member of AARP?  They've been warning about Senior scams forever, but especially in the last six months that I've observed.  (AARP has its faults, but...)

Last time I had a problem (I had lost my checkbook), I ran down to the bank and had them close all my accounts and re-open them as different accounts.  They were very cooperative and FAST in that maneuver.  Took about a half hour, maybe 45 minutes sitting by my personal banker's desk. No further problems.  They issued counter checks for free for me to hold me over until new checkbooks and savings account books could be printed and delivered.

I remarked on the FAST service on that and my personal banker told me that it was getting to be routine for them.  Kind of a wham-bam thank you ma'am operation nowadays, I guess.

Terry

[Scout26]

Yeah, notify the bank ASAP....

I keep re-iterating to my mother to NEVER, EVER, EVER give out bank account info over the phone.  Even to me or my brothers or sisters.  NEVER !!!!


I hope you're able to recover/stop it from happening.  Otherwise, I don't think there's any recourse for your mother...

[230RN]

That's one of the reasons this old pharte does not use automatic payment services and writes out every check by hand.  With a pen, doncha know.  You remember those?  They leave dark ink lines when you run them across the paper, remember?

Stupid of me, hah?

And gee, my creditors keep bugging me about how convenient it is to have that service --avoid late payments, forgotten/missed payments, lost in the mail...  Hey, if they can hack into Chase's data base and the dot-gov data bases...

Terry

[Firethorn]

Have you contacted the bank yet?  If you haven't DO SO.  Most transfers still take ~24 hours to finalize.

That's one of the reasons this old pharte does not use automatic payment services and writes out every check by hand.  With a pen, doncha know.

One of your checks is all I need to steal everything I need to empty your accounts.

And I'm an IT security guy, not a thief.

[MechAg94]

I guess I do see some of the checks I write come in as electronic. 

[Ben]

Ugh. Very sorry to hear that. The more responses you get here means that more time has gone by. Hopefully you immediately called the bank. I think for a lot of banks, if the money transfer is not between your accounts, or if it is going to another bank, there is a 24 or so hour window before the transfer is complete. There might still be a chance for you to head this off at the pass. Also call the police.

I know, dealing with it myself, that elderly parents can be obstinate. Nevertheless, see if you can talk your mom into giving you some control over her accounts, or at the very least, giving you joint authority over her accounts. I have the latter with my dad. While he is still pretty good upstairs, in case he ever has a hiccup, the joint authority let me setup email and text alerts so that if he ever does something screwy, I'll know immediately and can call the bank or use my mobile app to look at his accounts.

EDIT: Firethorn got the 24 hour thing in ahead of me.

[lupinus]

Yeah call bank ASAP.

Even if closed they should have a fraud line or something open.

Sent from my iPhone. Freaking autocorrect.

[Chester32141]

Turns out both banks had 24 hr numbers that mom was able to communicate with ... no money lost but lots of inconvenience for an invalid ... I would have said my mom was the last person that would fall for a scam ...

Thanks for the advice ...

[HankB]

. . . I know, dealing with it myself, that elderly parents can be obstinate . . .

QFT - I have first hand experience with this myself . . . mostly with Mom's refusal to get hearing aids.

Fortunately, Mom still has her marbles and NOBODY who calls her on the phone is going to get ANY information from her - not "credit security" not "enforcement officer from IRS" not "Follow up phone call for the back brace you inquired about" . . . NOBODY.

She shreds not only bank statements, but even the envelopes they come in so dumpster divers won't even know WHERE she banks.

[K Frame]

If the banks are not doing so, all bank accounts need to be changed. New numbers, etc. Not just the ones she gave them, but EVERYTHING.

In fact, it might not be a bad idea to change banks entirely if that is feasible. If it's not, the savings accounts need to be password protected to prevent electronic withdrawals. Not sure if all banks offer that or not, but it's a feature that saved a friend a LOT of money when someone tried to do an automatic offshore withdrawal using his information. He's still not sure how they got it.

Also suggest new credit cards, and placing fraud alerts on your Mom's credit reports to head off anyone trying to open new credit accounts using her information.

Finally, keep a minimum amount of money in her checking account. Just enough to cover a month's regular bills. Other funds can be transferred in as needed. If someone does manage to burn through the security the loss won't be that bad.

It's likely that they also got your Mom's social security number and her date of birth. I'm not sure what can be done about that, but it's something you need to look into. Same with the DMV if she still has a driver's license.


This is something that I really fear happening with my Mother. I've got daily control of her accounts at the moment, and am paying her bills, but she's getting to the point where she's an odd combination of paranoid and trusting, and you're just never sure what you're going to get at any one moment.

[Ben]

To add to what Mike said, also make sure there are no overdraft protection links between accounts. I do the "minimum amount in the checking account" thing for myself as well, but it doesn't do any good if the bank thinks they are "helping" you save a $15 bounced check fee by giving potential scammers access to funds in a linked account.

Better to have your mom occasionally pay a small bounced check fee if she accidentally makes an accounting error than to give thieves access to more of her accounts.

[K Frame]

"make sure there are no overdraft protection links between accounts."

Oh hell, excellent advice. Never thought of that.

[Scout26]

My overdraft is linked to a credit card.  So there is fraud protection there.

Again. I keep $200-$300 in the account linked to the debt card, that's what is used to pay for day to day purchases (Groceries, gas, etc.)  The monthly bills are paid electronically from the other checking account where the monthly checks are deposited. Mutual funds are also with USAA, but it is separate from the bank.

There is a savings account in a local bank.  And Robert's savings account in a different local bank (close enough for him to walk to deposit money.)

 

[Tuco]

Publisher's Clearinghouse?
Im calling mom.
"Ma, Ed McMahon delivers the checks directly.  You didn't win anything until you see Ed at the door."


Good luck with this.  I know it ain't easy.

[K Frame]

If Ed is at the door, the only thing she had won is the zombie apocalypse.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Scout26]

I haven't heard of it yet this year, but last year, but the most "popular" scam of last spring was the IRS scam.

Someone would call claiming to be Agent Schmuckatelli of the IRS, and if you didn't pay your delinquent taxes either by credit card or direct debit from your bank account, they would be at you door within the next hour or two to arrest you or your spouse.l

Had a guy call me last year threatening to come kick my ass because the IRS had called and spoke to his wife with the above scam.  She was in absolute hysterics in the background because she didn't have enough in their bank account to cover the "amount owed", so she gave them CC info also.  Once I explained to him that the IRS sends letters and not agents and the send them for years trying to collect.   And they don't come arrest you, they send you a court appearance notice.  And you need to call your bank and CC to stop everything.   They still got taken for over $10k from their bank account and it wasn't the IRS that took it.

[230RN]

She shreds not only bank statements, but even the envelopes they come in so dumpster divers won't even know WHERE she banks.

Good idea.  I don't go that far, even though I've got a shredder.  I just tear them up into tiny pieces and spread the bits around in the various household trash cans... which rarely get dumpstered all at the same time.  So there's a pretty low S/N ratio there.

One bank asked me if I wanted overdraft protection between checking and savings accounts and I immediately said no.  I couldn't believe people would do that.  

Not a bad idea to tie overdrafts to a credit card, though.  I'll have to think about that. (My personal banker finally "convinced" / "forced" me to get an actual credit card and I told him to keep the limit down to $2K, just enough for bail money.  That guy could sell ice making machines to Eskimos.  I'm still thinking of canceling it anyhow, but it does come in handy, especially at the gas pumps when it's snowing.)

Some darned good advice in this thread.  Heed it.

Terry

[Ben]

Not a bad idea to tie overdrafts to a credit card, though.  I'll have to think about that. (My personal banker finally "convinced" / "forced" me to get an actual credit card and I told him to keep the limit down to $2K, just enough for bail money.  That guy could sell ice making machines to Eskimos.  I'm still thinking of canceling it anyhow, but it does come in handy, especially at the gas pumps when it's snowing.)

There's really nothing wrong with a wisely used credit card that is paid off each month. In fact it can actually make you money. If you research the better "cash back" and "points" cards that pay back a higher percentage for things you do or are interested in (e.g., Amazon if you like to shop there), so every time you fill your tank or buy groceries or whatever, you're building points for free stuff. Again, this only works for people that use their credit card as if it is a debit card. If you carry over balances, it quickly negates any "points" advantages.

[K Frame]

I have very few paper mailings from any of my financial institutions. Most communications from them I get through their websites.

As for overdraft, I have overdraft protection through Navy Federal, not from my savings account, but via a separate personal service loan account that it taps for no fee.

[HankB]

Chester, with all the information the crooks got from your Mom, maybe identity theft protection (LifeLock?) is called for . . .

[KD5NRH]

Publisher's Clearinghouse?
Im calling mom.
"Ma, Ed McMahon delivers the checks directly.  You didn't win anything until you see Ed at the door."


Good luck with this.  I know it ain't easy.

Especially if she remembers that Ed shilled for American Family Publishers.

I just tear them up into tiny pieces and spread the bits around in the various household trash cans... which rarely get dumpstered all at the same time.  So there's a pretty low S/N ratio there.

I tend to check the mail on the way to work, then drop them in the office shredder.  Depending on who dumps that, it's either in the dumpster mixed with all sorts of other random crap (since the shredder is closer to the printer than any of the regular cans, there's a pretty high noise floor for anyone reassembling shred bits looking for value...probably a third of the volume is bad prints of freely available datasheets or drafts of contracts that are still blank in all the sensitive details anyway) or in the burn barrel marinating in diesel until it becomes fine white ash, then wet ash paste.  Overkill, probably, but easy enough to do.

[K Frame]

If I have something REALLY sensitive that I want to get rid of, I bring it to the office and run it through one of the high security shredders rated for Secret/TS material. For all intents and purposes, it turns the paper in something just a bit coarser than powder.

A couple of years ago they were decommissioning one of the super high security doc destruction units here. The first pass was a shredder. The second pass was an incinerator. The third pass was a chamber that mixed the ashes with water and a solvent (not sure if it was an ink solvent or a paper destruction solvent), which was finally pumped into the sewer. 

[230RN]

I don't know how widespread this is, but our local Sheriff has "Shred-a-thon" Shredder Days in May.  Might be worth checking into for your locale.  I never used it, but FYI FWIW:

http://jeffco.us/sheriff/services/shred-a-thon/

Terry

[Doggy Daddy]

I don't know how widespread this is, but our local Sheriff has "Shred-a-thon" Shredder Days in May.  Might be worth checking into for your locale.  I never used it, but FYI FWIW:

http://jeffco.us/sheriff/services/shred-a-thon/

Terry

Not uncommon here for some businesses around the city to have free shredding events.  I've noticed it seems to be mainly businesses that would be prone to accumulating large amounts of records that would need to be shredded at designated times in bulk (think credit unions, medical services, etc.).  I'm thinking that since they're hiring one of those shredmobiles to come to the business, they capitalize on the event by sharing the services with their customers and public.