Couple lose 38 years’ of savings as they hand over $564k

A married couple of nearly 40 years lost all of their life savings to online wire transfer scams. The pair were tricked into handing over $564,000, the equivalent of around £446,000, due to being convinced their savings were at risk.

Eden and Mark, who chose to only use their first names, spoke with ABC 10 News about being victims of this type of fraud.

Speaking to Team 10, Eden said: “All of the money we saved for the 38 years we were married, it was all taken from us.”

Back in October, Eden received a pop-up notice about a virus on her computer and ended up calling what she thought was the number for Microsoft, but was in fact nothing to do with the company.

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Upon calling the fake helpline, she was told that there was a “terrible problem” with her device which had to be addressed.

She added: “It (the problem) was connected to identity theft and it looks like there are people with criminal backgrounds trying to get into my bank accounts.”

Thinking she was going to lose access to money and convinced she was speaking with Microsoft, Eden decided to take action.

However, it turns out that the person she was speaking to over the phone was a scammer.

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The fraudster told Eden they were going to connect her with a Government official, who told her to transfer her money to another bank account to protect it.

This “Government official” was actually a fraudster and tricked her into thinking her family’s savings were in jeopardy.

The scammers convinced Eden into transferring the money to an account based in Hong Kong.

Eden said: “Before I left the house, I was to check in with him. When I got to the bank, I was to check in with him and when I left the bank after the transfer, I was to check in with him.”

Overall, Eden made five different wire transfers to the scammers which came to $564,000 (around £446,953.08).

As well as this, she claims she was told not to share any details about the wire transfers with her husband.

Eden claims her bank did not ask her any follow-up questions about why the transfers were being made to the Hong Kong account.

She explained: “Chase played a major role. The fact that their own wire department just did not ask me any questions, I think is unconscionable.”

Mark added: “We were private clients with Chase. We used to get calls, sometimes maybe even a little bit annoying.

“We knew them personally, checking in with us. For the life of me, with five suspicious transfers of money, why they couldn’t pick up the phone, I’ll never understand that.”

Speaking to ABC 10 News, a representative from Chase disputed Eden’s version of events, and said that she was warned and signed a disclaimer titled: ‘Be aware of wire scams’.

On top of this, the representative shared that bank staff explains the wire transfer document to all customers to make sure they are knowledgable about different types of scams.

http://Express.co.uk has contacted Chase asking for comment.

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