Westchester County woman says she's a victim of a bank scam experts call "account takeovers"
ARDSLEY, N.Y. -- A Westchester County woman says she lost more than $30,000 to a sophisticated bank scam.
Since the summer, she says she has gone through the agonizing task of trying to get the money back. Experts told CBS2's Lisa Rozner on Tuesday the scams are called "account takeovers" and in the last several months, the incidents have increased.
As the daughter of a retired NYPD cop who investigated fraud, Ardsley resident Denise Apostle says she was well aware of the warning signs of suspicious activity.
"I never thought anything like this would happen to me. My mom worked for Citibank for 27 years," she said.
So when Apostle used her Citibank account to pay her bills online in July, she didn't think anything of the message she received on what she thought was the bank's website.
"It said your account has been compromised and to call this number, so I believed I was calling Citibank," she said. "He had the same lingo when I usually speak to someone from Citibank, as well as he sent me Citi codes."
The texts she received on July 6 with a Citi ID code looked almost identical to previous texts the real Citibank had sent her.
She was told to change her password.
The next day she received a voicemail from a Texas number that turned out to be Citibank's fraud department. Even though she missed the call, she says 20 minutes later the entire savings she had for her daughters' colleges and home bills was gone.
"Three savings accounts were zeroed out and put into my checking and $35,000 went wired out to Hong Kong Toys LTD. What the branch manager told me is if they didn't hear back from me, it should have went pending," Apostle said.
But Citibank is denying her request to replenish her account because "...the fraud reported was caused by providing customer account information or authorization for the transactions that were determined to be a scam."
Apostle is on her third appeal and a Citibank spokesman said the bank is reviewing the case.
One nonprofit that educates people about financial fraud told Rozner these kinds of scams have increase more than 100 percent over the last several months.
"The fraudsters are pretty savvy. They can make it look like it's coming from your financial institution, when it's not," said Mark Solomon, vice president of International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. "Any type of communication with your financial institution should be initiated by you."
He said if you're ever unsure, hang up and call the institution back.
It's also important to have different passwords for different accounts.
Apostle said Citibank encouraged her to get an interest-free credit card while her case is investigated, and she said she is relying on that now to pay bills.
For more tips on how to avoid scams like this, please click here and here.
