Victim Location 06460
Total money lost $2,000
Type of a scam Phishing
This fraud event occurred on 12/7/19 at 20:36. I received a text from +1(423)281-6136. The text stated "1/2:FreeMsg : People’s united bank fraud Dept: Did you add debit (DECLINED) card on iPhone XR 01001 MA? Reply YES Or NO. CASE 345768/ To Opt Out Reply STOP." I did not reply to this text. As I was reading the text, I was receiving a phone call from a number I did not recognize (1-800-894-0300). I did not answer this call and decided to google the phone number. The phone number belongs to the People’s United Bank fraud department. They called me again and I answered. I believed that I was speaking to a People’s United Bank employee. They asked about two new charges on my account and wanted to know if I had made these charges. They told me the amounts and where the charges were made. I told them I did not authorize these charges. This call did not seem out of the ordinary; I have had People’s United Bank employees call me in the past for charges that I have made out of state to verify that I had made them. The scammer knew my full name and my online account username. He asked me to verify my account number and even knew some of the numbers of my account number without me telling him. He stated he would send me a code to repeat back to him to verify my account. I did as I was told. After hanging up, I saw that I had gotten an e-mail during the phone call at 20:52 that my online banking phone number was changed. At 20:56, I received another e-mail that "Clodius white" was added to my People Pay account. I have never once used Person-to-Person pay. I immediately called the People’s United Bank fraud department to let them know that I thought I might have been scammed. While on the phone with a People’s United Bank representative (I believe her name was Christine), I received two more e-mails at 20:57 that $500 had been sent to Clodius white and another at 21:00 that $2000 was sent to Clodius white. The woman I spoke to at People’s assured me that I had nothing to worry about and that I would get my $2000 back because I had not authorized the charge (the $500 was never taken, because $2000 is the maximum amount that can be transferred). She told me that she would freeze my account and that I needed to go to a People’s United branch when possible to close the account. I informed her that I was working the next three days (07:00-19:30) and would be unable to get to a branch until 12/11/19. She said this was not an issue. I went to the bank on 12/11/19 and was helped there by another woman (Terry) who again assured me that I would be able to get my $2000 back. She helped me file the claim, close out my checking and savings account, and change the password on my online banking account. On 1/9/2020, I received a call from the Milford branch. They left a voicemail stating the following: "Hi Emily, it’s Terry. I’m calling from People’s United. I was calling to follow up on the checking account that we opened as well as seeing if you got your money back from the unauthorized purchase that we filed the form for. When you get a chance, please call me back. My phone number is (203)878-5247. Thank you Emily and have a good day." Being extra cautious (for fear of being scammed again), I did not call this phone number back but instead googled the Milford branch number and spoke to the woman who called me directly. She expressed surprise that the $2000 was not returned to me yet and told me to call the fraud department when possible to follow up on the claim and ask when I would be receiving my money. She indicated that there was no urgency; sometimes, these claims may take more than a month to be rectified. On 1/16/19, I called the fraud department and was informed that my claim had been denied because I had given the code number texted to me to the scammer. Prior to this, no one had called or e-mailed to notify me that my claim had been denied. I went to the People’s United branch in Milford and met with the manager, Augustine Dwamena, who told me that he would call customer experience and see if there was anything that could be done. After speaking with Augustine, I spoke to my mother (who is also listed on my account) and became aware of additional information about this situation. When I had called her on 12/7/19 after speaking with People’s United Bank fraud department, she immediately logged onto our account and saw the pending transfer to Clodius white for $2000 (of note, the transfer remained pending until 12/10/19 without being stopped by People’s despite me notifying them immediately). One hour later, after speaking with my aunt about a similar scam, my mother went to our People’s United online account again and saw a "scam alert" on the log-in screen. She indicated that this made her think that I was not the only person who had just been scammed. In addition to her receiving this "scam alert," I received an email from People’s United Bank on 12/12/19 entitled "Scammers think they’re smart. You can be smarter." The email described examples of scams very similar to mine. These last two points lead me to believe that this scam was more widespread and had to do with a security breach at People’s United Bank. The perpetrator of this scam had secure information that had somehow been revealed to him without me providing this information. I am only privy to my own troubles regarding this, but I suspect that People’s is aware of a much broader security breach if they posted these alerts to all customers shortly after the time I was scammed. I spoke to People’s employee Dean DeBiase on 1/17/2020. He said he would have Mark Woods (another People’s employee) call me. I received a phone call from Mark Woods on 1/17/2020. He told me I was supposed to receive a letter in the mail denying my claim (which I never did). He also said that he would follow up with the People’s employees who had assured me that I would get my money back. He told me that I should have been advised to file a police report, which I wasn’t. On 1/22/2020, I called the People’s United Bank fraud department and spoke to Crystal. I explained I never received the letter denying my claim. She said she would have it mailed again but that I wouldn’t receive the letter until the end of the following week. On 1/22/2020, I also went to the Milford Police Department to file a police report. I was able to provide the email address and phone number that the scammer used to transfer my money to themselves (this information was given to me by People’s). The police department gave me an Identity Theft packet to fill out. In filling out the MPD Identify Theft packet, I submitted an Identity Theft Report to the Federal Trade Commission. From www.ftc.gov, I also came to find out my information had been exposed in the Equifax security breach of 2017. I filed a claim for this as well per the instructions of the Federal Trade Commission. That evening, I called People’s United Bank again to ask if they could fax the denial letter to the Milford Branch to expedite this process. They stated that they would and that the Milford branch would call me when the letter was received (which they never did). My mother and I asked to speak with a higher-up who could better assist us in getting this issue resolved. The supervisor we spoke to stated that she would have someone call us within a couple of days. We never received a call. Despite their promises to help me get my money back, People’s has done next to nothing to help me. I will continue to try anything and everything I can to have this rectified. A friend of mine who is a customer of TD Bank went through the exact same scam (including giving her personal information to the scammer) and TD Bank got her $8000 back to her without an issue. If TD Bank was able to help their customer in this way, I feel that People’s should be doing the same.