A US banking giant was “too busy” to stop a criminal from stealing a customer’s money as a scam unfolded in real time.
Ann Booras says she recently received a call from someone claiming to be with Wells Fargo who asked if she was trying to wire a total of $25,000 out of her savings account, reports ABC 7 News.
The caller, who was in reality a scammer, tricked Booras into initiating two wire transfers out of her account.
While Booras was talking with the scammer, she raced to her local Wells Fargo branch, where a teller silently confirmed that she was on the phone with a thief.
But instead of jumping in to cut off the wire transfers, Booras says the bank told her it was too busy to pause the transfers and prevent the money from leaving her account.
“[The bank said] I’m sorry we’re all busy. We’re backed up with appointments back to back. You need to go to another branch, but we can’t help you here.”
Booras says she was in shock at the lack of understanding and urgency on the part of Wells Fargo.
“I was dumbfounded. Like, how can you not help me? [It was] a whole other level of rage.”
Booras ran to another nearby branch, which at that point could only prevent $5,000 of the $25,000 from leaving her bank account.
When she filed a claim with the bank, Wells Fargo refused to reimburse her for the remaining $20,000. Booras says the bank called her personally to deny the claim.
“He was like, ‘No, sorry, Wells Fargo would never call you.’ And I said, ‘You just called me!'”
Now that Booras has made her story public, Wells Fargo, which has $1.88 trillion in assets under management, has issued a generic statement in response.
“We strive to do all that we can to support scam victims. When a customer reports they’ve fallen victim, we take these situations seriously and provide customers options, including our fraud claim team contact information.
We remain focused on raising awareness of scams and how wire transfers are an immediate form of payment that are typically irreversible, even if a customer quickly reports a wire they sent to a scammer. This includes sending a warning message to customers before they send an online wire.”
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