Hacked! Teen's Life Savings Stolen, Bank Gives Run-Around
DALLAS (CBS11 NEWS) - When hackers stole a North Texas teenager's life savings and the bank wouldn't help, she called CBS11 Consumer Justice reporter Cristin Severance.
High School senior Katie Loving spends her days on the go.
"I'm in my band at high school. I'm a drum major, so I'm at school at 5:30 in the morning and stay until 6 o'clock each day," said Loving.
Adding Christian camp and travel to her busy itinerary made sense, so Loving enthusiastically took a mission trip to England this summer.
"It was nice just being able to kind of disconnect for a little bit and not have to worry about social media or anything like that," described Loving of her time across the pond.
She wasn't allowed to have a phone at camp nor did she have the data usage in England.
But little did Loving know, someone had hacked her savings account and was taking out small amounts of money for months while she was away.
By the end of July, all of her money was gone.
"I kind of had like a little freak out," said Loving.
Loving and her parents went right to Chase Bank to straighten it out.
"When looking at my account they were all from PayPal which was really strange first of all cause I don't have a PayPal account," said Loving.
The bank only offered the teen and her parents lectures, not answers.
"Well, you should have checked your account," Loving said they told her.
But out of the country, without a way to check her saving account, Loving wasn't in a position to do so.
And the bank wasn't sympathetic at all.
"And in the beginning it was tiny amounts so they weren't noticed," said Katie's mother Shelly Loving about the trickle of stolen money.
Chase Bank told Loving, by law, they are only required to reimburse her the money 60 days from the first unauthorized transaction.
Thus, of the $3,500 stolen, the bank would only reimburse $300.
"I was dumb founded and angry," said the teen's mom.
After going to the bank several times, calling the customer service line and asking to speak with managers they called CBS11 for Consumer Justice. And the next day, the bank contacted Katie and gave her a temporary credit until PayPal reimbursed them the entire amount.
Chase Bank sent CBS11 the following statement:
We work hard to protect customers' information and accounts. But customers should also be ready to help prevent fraud.
Always monitor your accounts on a regular basis. Our free account alerts are a great way to keep track of your finances and to detect unauthorized withdrawals or other suspicious account activity. For example, you can sign up to get an alert by text, phone or email whenever there's a withdrawal from your account that is more than the amount you've set.