Westchester County woman says she’s victim of bank scam experts call “account takeover” | Techy Kings

ARDSLEY, NY — A Westchester County woman says she lost more than $30,000 to sophisticated bank fraud.

Since the summer, he said he has been going through the tough task of getting the money back. Experts told CBS2’s Lisa Rozner on Tuesday that the scam is called “account takeover” and in recent months, incidents have increased.

As the daughter of a retired NYPD cop who investigated fraud, Ardsley resident Denise Apostle said she was well aware of the warning signs of suspicious activity.

“I never thought something like this would happen to me. My mother worked at Citibank for 27 years,” he said.

So when Apostle used his Citibank account to pay his bill online in July, he thought nothing of the message he received on the bank’s website.

“It says your account has been compromised and called this number, so I believe I’m calling Citibank,” he said. “He had the same language when I usually talk to someone from Citibank, plus he sent me the Citi code.”

The text he received on July 6 with the Citi ID code looked almost identical to the previous text sent to him by the real Citibank.

He was told to change his password.

The next day he received a voicemail from a Texas number that turned out to be Citibank’s fraud department. Although she missed the call, she said 20 minutes later, her entire savings for college and her daughter’s house bill were gone.

“Three savings accounts were zeroed out and put into my check and $35,000 went to Hong Kong Toys LTD. What the branch manager told me is that if they don’t hear back from me, it should be unfinished,” Apostle said.

But Citibank denied his request to add his account because “…reported fraud was caused by providing customer account information or authorization for transactions that had been determined to be fraudulent.”

Apostle is on his third appeal and a Citibank spokeswoman said the bank is reviewing the case.

A nonprofit organization that educates the public about financial fraud told Rozner that this type of fraud has increased more than 100 percent in the past few months.

“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 the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. “Any type of communication with your financial institution should be initiated by you.”

He said if you’re not sure, hang up and call the institution again.

It is also important to have different passwords for different accounts.

Apostle said Citibank encouraged him to get an interest-free credit card while his case is investigated, and he said he relies on that now to pay the bills.

For more tips on how to avoid scams like this, please click here and here.