A former police sergeant living in Chicago's Calumet Heights neighborhood lost her life savings due to fraud after not reporting the incident within 30 days.
Courtney White, formerly of the Markham Police Department, accumulated the savings over the course of a decade, which was wiped out in an instant.
“I worked my butt off,” White said. “I was the overtime queen at work. So all my overtime money went into my savings for my family.”
To help those savings grow, White set up a Chase Bank account in 2001 with no debit card and no checks.
“I deliberately had my savings account set up where I would have to walk into the bank to make transactions,” White said.
Every month, White did just that for years to withdraw money for her son's allowance. Over the years, the money had also been used to pay for her daughter's college education and travel expenses.
After more than a decade, White said she saved roughly $87,000.
One day in the fall of 2022, White was given an "insufficient funds" message and checked her account balance for the first time in months.
NBC 5 Responds
White said she found there were daily withdrawals amounting to thousands of dollars, later learning someone was impersonating her.
The withdrawals occurred at multiple Chase branches and were made in-person.
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“If you look at all of the withdrawal slips, you can clearly see the difference in the handwriting,” White said, who pointed to a stark difference in how she writes her dates on withdrawal slips compared with how the date is written on the withdrawal slips used by the fraudster.
“I don't know how [Chase] couldn't catch that,” White said.
White filed a police report and has filed several fraud claims with Chase since then, though all of her fraud claims were denied as she hadn't reported the fraud within 30 days of receiving her statement.
“Somebody should have recognized that this is an outrageous amount of transactions every day. It should have been … some sort of alert,” White said. “I've never banked like that. And like I said, I've had Chase for 20 years.”
NBC 5 Responds took a deeper look into the Chase branch where White said she was on a first-name basis with tellers.
Records from Chicago police show several Chase customers at the branch reported unauthorized withdrawals on their accounts in the past few years, with scenarios described as similar to White's.
The data also provides insight into what else was happening inside the Chase branch, with more than a dozen Chase customers reporting that they were robbed or scammed while using the branch's ATM.
White said Chase was also unable to provide surveillance video to help determine who was making withdrawals under her name due to the amount of time that had passed.
A statement from Chase said upon review of the case, the bank's decision will not be reversed.
"We will cooperate with any investigation, as we always do. As we remind all customers, it is important to review your monthly statements and if you see any unauthorized transactions to let us know right away. We provide customers with many steps to boost account security, including setting up account alerts to receive notifications whenever there’s a purchase or withdrawal from your account that’s over a certain amount. For more info and tips visit chase.com/security,” the statement said in part.
As a result of losing the savings, White took her son out of private school.
“I worked hard for that money. And that's what I did for a living. Help people who are victims of crimes, fraud. And here I became a victim myself,” White said.
Here are some key takeaways:
- Make it a habit to check the balance on all your bank accounts. Your bank may require you to file a fraud claim for suspicious charges within 30 days of receiving your account statement.
- Set up balance or transactions alerts for accounts you don't often use.
