GOLDEN, Colo. (KDVR) — By the time Golden resident Scott Zoll realized the Chase Bank fraud team he had been talking to on the phone were scammers themselves, he was out more than $137,000.
Most of the money came out of Scott’s business account, but some of it was also drained from the personal account he shares with his wife, Kate.
“Every day, we just wake up and feel like we’re living kind of a nightmare right now,” Kate said.
Scam started with a text
What happened to Scott began with a text to his phone on Jan. 12 that said, “Chase Alerts: Did you attempt to send a Wire transfer for the amount of $4,500.00? Reply Y or N. STOP to end.”
“At that point, before I did anything else, I reached out to my business partners and asked if they had initiated a wire. They had not,” Scott said. “So I then called the bank branch to see if they could see any activity on my account.”
An employee at his local Chase Bank branch immediately gave him a number to its fraud department, but what happened next was his big mistake.
“At that point, I acknowledged the text that came through, said, ‘No, we did not initiate this wire,’ got a text back immediately saying somebody from the Chase fraud team will be in contact with you. Probably within 30 seconds, I received a phone call from the exact number that the branch had just given me,” Scott said.
What he never guessed was that the call from Chase alerts was the scammers who had just spoofed the Chase fraud team’s number, leaving Scott to think he was talking with Chase Bank.
“At one point I even called the Chase line because the phone number dropped, and I called the Chase fraud line. And I was frustrated with the actual Chase because they couldn’t see the conversations that were happening,” Scott said. “And within a minute, you know, the people that were scamming us actually called back. And I’m like, great, these people know what they’re talking about so I’m going to go back to this call.”
Scott told FOX31 the scammers somehow already had his bank account number and even knew how much money he had. Once the scammers had Scott back on the line, all they needed from him was a one-time passcode.
The scammers told Scott he would receive a one-time passcode from Chase Bank, which he did, and then he unwittingly shared it with the fraudsters pretending to be Chase Bank.
That phone call would cost the Zolls $137,130 in fraudulent wire transfers.
Scammers use sophisticated scripts to dupe victims
In hindsight, Scott said he was struck by the detailed script the scammers knew to use.
“Everything that they said on that call — ‘you’re on a recorded line, here’s who we are, here’s what we see, here’s what we need’ — everything was identical to what we’ve experienced with the actual fraud team,” Scott said. “Asked the exact same questions, the level of sophistication, the level of knowledge that they had about the banking systems, as well as the scripts that these, you know, groups would go through was unbelievable.”
The most recent FBI statistics show in 2022, 405 Colorado residents lost $457,985 to phishing scams. Another 467 Coloradans lost more than $2 million to spoofing scams.
“The technology does exist that they can spoof phone numbers from anywhere in the world and make it look like it’s Chase fraud department,” said Brian Blauser, a supervisory special agent with the Denver field office of the FBI.
Blauser told the Problem Solvers phishing scams via text and spoofing scams via phone call are getting more sophisticated every day: “Be very leery of unsolicited text messages, phone calls or a pop-up or an email that you’ve got a fraudulent charge in your account.”
Blauser said never to trust an incoming call like the Zolls did. If you think you’ve been scammed, call your bank using a number you trust, either from their website, your bank statement or the back of your debit card to initiate a wire recall and file a report with the FBI at ic3.gov.
“The best advice that I would relay would be, ‘Hey, take a second.’ Because a lot of the times the scammers are going to try to create the persona that there’s an urgent need. You have to act now,” Blauser said.
That’s exactly what Scott wishes he had done.
“If I would have just slowed down and looked at some of the other indicators, but we’re talking, you know, over $100,000,” Scott said. “Like you want to act fast or you think you need to.”
In a statement, Chase Bank told the Problem Solvers:
These types of scams are heartbreaking. Beware of new contacts asking you for codes, access to your device, or to send them, yourself, or anyone else money to prevent fraud. Chase, other banks, law enforcement, and technology companies won’t ask you to do this, but scammers will. Like cash, wires are final payments and are rarely successfully recalled, once sent.
Chase Bank
“My time has been consumed with calls between the fraud department, the wires team, the claims department, the local branch, their tech people. Because we’ve had to change everything, all of our passwords, all of our bank accounts, all of our credit cards, everything has had to be canceled and re-renewed,” Scott said.
Moving forward, but frustrated with fraud detection
“We’ll find money again,” Kate said. “We work hard. So I recognize that this isn’t the end of our lives. This isn’t the end of the world. We have to show our children that we’ll overcome this and we’ll get through this. But there is a special place in hell for the people that can do this to someone.”
The Zolls said they are frustrated that Chase Bank’s fraud detection system didn’t recognize what was happening in real-time. The couple said in all their years of banking with Chase, they have never wired money anywhere and had hoped that would have set off red flags.
Scott said only one of the 11 wire transfers was flagged as suspicious, and the text he received on Jan. 12 said if the bank didn’t hear from the couple by Jan. 18, the wire would be canceled.
Since the couple reported the Jan. 12 scam the very next day, they assumed the wire would be canceled, and yet they later learned it went through like all the others.
“And so there weren’t red flags that went off saying like, ‘Wow, these people’s personal account is being fully drained, and we’re sending three-fifths of the money from this company to these random banks,’” Scott said.
Kate added to her husband’s statement: “You go to Mexico and Chase knows you don’t live in Mexico and flags you (when you use your debit card). But they can’t tell you, when you’re wiring money to Guam, that that sounds suspicious?”
Kate said getting help from Chase Bank has been an exercise in frustration.
“It was just, ‘Ma’am, I can see the (fraud) claims are denied but I’m going to need to send you to this wire fraud team,’ and you’re just always getting punted to the next team. Those teams are clearly not talking to one another,” Kate said.
Problem Solvers inquiries led to action on the case
The couple told FOX31 they were finally assigned a case manager on Jan. 24 after the Problem Solvers made inquiries to Chase Bank, even though the scam had been reported back on Jan. 13.
The scammers told Scott that no matter what he would be covered up to $250,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. But FDIC insurance only covers deposits when there is a bank failure, not when someone has been scammed.
A spokesman for Chase Bank said it’s working on wire recalls with the four banks that received the wire transfers from the couple’s bank accounts. The spokesman added that those banks have 60-90 days to respond, and if the money was wired from American banks to banks overseas, the money is likely gone forever.
“Just wake up and start all over again to try to accept that all our money is gone, and I’m not hopeful at this point in the journey that we’re going to see any of it again,” Kate said on Jan. 23.
However, on Jan. 31, Kate told FOX31 that a case manager with Chase Bank called to say Chase believes the couple will get a “significant amount” of funds returned to them — but not all. Kate said the bank was able to determine that Scott’s personal computer was hacked 13 months ago and infected with malware that might have allowed scammers to see his bank account information.
On the same day, a spokesman for Chase Bank confirmed to FOX31 that the bank believes that in this case, a significant amount of funds will be recovered.
How to protect against bank scams
Chase Bank shared a list of reminders with FOX31 for what consumers and businesses should remember to protect against scams:
- Protect your personal account information, ATM pins, passwords and one-time passcodes. If someone contacts you and asks for this information, especially if it’s someone claiming to be from your bank, do not share it with them.
- If you want to be sure you’re talking to a legitimate representative of the company that contacted you, call the number on their official website.
- If you want to be sure you’re talking to a legitimate representative of your bank, call the number on the back of your debit or credit card or visit a branch.
- Scammers can “spoof” phone numbers. The caller ID can say the call or text is from Chase even though it’s not. Even if your caller ID says a call or text is from Chase, it could be a scam. When in doubt hang up and call us directly.
- Never click on suspicious links in a text or email or grant anyone remote access to your phone or computer.
- Do not respond to phone, text or internet requests for money or access to your computer or bank accounts. Banks will never call, text or email asking for you to send money to yourself or anyone else to prevent fraud.
- Don’t let anyone pressure or threaten you into giving them personal information or money. Hang up or don’t respond.
- If anyone says you must act right now, stop and ask yourself, “Is this how a legitimate company would act?” If something seems “off,” it probably is.
- If you see unauthorized charges on your account or believe you’ve experienced fraud, report it to your bank.
- To learn more about common scams and ways to protect yourself visit: chase.com/securitycenter
