An Escondido retiree who lost $177,000 to an international investment scam says he wishes his bank had done more to stop him from sending away his life savings, highlighting a growing challenge for financial institutions trying to protect customers from sophisticated scams.<\/p>\n
The 77-year-old man, identified only as Tom, said he transferred the money over six months before realizing he had fallen victim to a well-orchestrated scam. <\/p>\n
The loss has left him facing debt and searching for work during what he expected would be his retirement years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took years to get to where I was. And to think, in six months it’s all gone,\u201d he said, explaining that the experience left him devastated. \u201cAnd so I’m praying for salvation and wondering, God, what have I done to cause all this much damage?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom asked NBC 7 Responds to conceal his identity because he feels embarrassed and broken about what happened.<\/p>\n
He said the scam appeared legitimate at first, partly because he had already conducted legitimate business online with people in other countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do legitimate business online with India and Poland. So she must have found my trail somehow online,\u201d Tom said.<\/p>\n
He says he researched the offer and initially believed the investment opportunity was real and felt increasingly committed as he continued sending money.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you pulled out now, you’d lose all that you have invested. So the pressure was on to see this through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Looking back, Tom said he now sees numerous warning signs and wishes Chase Bank had more aggressively questioned his transactions, which were significantly different from his typical banking activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore this, my monthly transactions were just minimal,\u201d he said. “I’m talking maybe $2,000 to $3,000 from income, from earnings, that jumped instantly to $30,000 to $40,000 to $60,000 over the course of six months.”<\/p>\n
Tom believes additional scrutiny could have prompted him to investigate further.<\/p>\n
Chase declined to discuss Tom\u2019s specific case but provided a statement to NBC 7 Responds.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur branch staff are trained to detect and assist customers who are potentially being scammed \u2013 they are there to help and have customers\u2019 best interest at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom acknowledged that a teller had warned him early in the process that he could be sending money to a scam. However, he said he dismissed the concern because he was convinced the investment was legitimate.<\/p>\n
\u201cSort of in passing. And I said, it’s for a business that I’m engaged in. And this is a payment for supplies. And she just more or less said, oh, OK. And that was that, once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom said his partner encountered a much different experience at San Diego County Credit Union when she attempted to send him money so they could continue funding the investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe branch manager called her in the office for a long talk and asked her, ‘ What’s this about? Why? Are you sure? Tell us more. She was there for maybe 20 minutes. Interrogation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nathan Schmidt of San Diego County Credit Union said there are customers who resist that level of scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur customers sometimes feel that they’re being interrogated. It’s my money. What are you doing? I can do whatever I want with that. But the prevalence of online scams is huge,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n
Schmidt said the credit union prioritizes fraud prevention, even if that means slowing down transactions. The institution uses tools, including a two-page questionnaire designed to identify potential scams before money is sent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat people don’t realize is once the wire is gone, they have sent that money, and it’s very difficult to get it back,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n
Tom admitted that the additional questions frustrated him and his partner at the time.<\/p>\n
As scams become increasingly sophisticated, some financial institutions are turning to behavioral biometrics and artificial intelligence to identify suspicious activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to stop all fraud payments, just stop payments. Just don’t allow it,\u201d joked Sharel Barshishat of BioCatch. His point is well taken.<\/p>\n
Barshishat said the challenge is finding a balance between security and convenience. <\/p>\n
According to the company, its technology analyzes thousands of behavioral indicators during online banking sessions to determine whether a customer could be being manipulated by a scammer.<\/p>\n
\u201cBioCatch in real time collects over 3,000 distinct behavioral parameters per session. And we use that to calculate through a machine learning model whether or not the session that we’re seeing right now is something that’s most likely to be a scam versus not likely to be a scam,\u201d Barshishat said.<\/p>\n
When the system detects signs of a potential scam, it can send customized warnings intended to alert customers before they complete a transaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this tailored messaging gets you to try to break the spell in that given moment,\u201d Barshishat said.<\/p>\n
Barshishat said some banks may choose to block or delay transactions when they believe a customer is being scammed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the bank can say, ‘Nope, we know that this is bad. We’re going to stop this payment. We know that this is going to amount to a scam.’ Or what they’ll do is kind of put it into a holding period or a cool-off period,” he said.<\/p>\n
He argued that customers ultimately appreciate those protections when they are applied carefully and intelligently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s done in a refined and intelligent manner to the level of, say, behavior or refined machine learning, then those customers ultimately do walk away appreciative and feeling like they’re protected at their own financial institution,\u201d Barshishat said.<\/p>\n
For Tom, stronger safeguards are exactly what he wishes had been in place before he lost his retirement savings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve got to find work now to compensate, I mean, there is no more retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n
California law requires financial institutions to notify Adult Protective Services when they suspect a scammer is exploiting a senior citizen account holder. Efforts to require banks to take additional actions have failed to become law, leaving individual financial institutions to determine their own fraud-prevention policies.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Escondido retiree who lost $177,000 to an international investment scam says he wishes his bank had done…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[17427,74,76,75,28489],"class_list":["post-368420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-banks","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-scams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}