More than 80% of Americans rely solely on banks to hold their money, but a Skokie man says that after his Citibank trust account was emptied by scammers, he was told by the bank that he would need to hire attorneys.
What's worse, NBC 5 Responds found that this frightening situation could happen to almost anyone, but there are steps you can take today to prevent it.
Before Scott Jacobson’s mother passed away in 2019- she only had one request.
“She said, ‘Please take care of Laurie’,” said Jacobson.
Laurie is Jacobson’s 65-year-old sister, and for years she’s been battling Alzheimer’s disease.
“Because she's young, it moves faster and faster. So it's not easy, but we manage,” said Jacobson.
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Jacobson is Laurie’s primary caregiver- a responsibility made a little bit easier because of the Citibank trust account his mother left for Laurie before her death.
“We've never touched her account at all. Never at all. Up until Oct. 14 (2021), when everything occurred,” said Jacobson.
A routine visit to the ATM in 2021 presented Jacobson with most peoples worst nightmare: expecting a large balance and seeing instead an account that was nearly drained.
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“I was like in complete shock and shaking,” said Jacobson.
His sister's trust account, once flush with $150,000, was nearly emptied.
“I was shaking because I was more concerned about my sister than I was about anything else. I showed the teller my slip and I said ‘can you please tell me what this was all about?’ She looked at it and says ‘you have three international wire transfers from Bangkok, Thailand’,” said Jacobson.
Jacobson says he never authorized any wire transfers, and he says he was never notified of them either.
He noticed the fraud just one day after the last fraudulent wire transfer was sent. He immediately filed three fraud affidavits with Citibank, and expected they would help him.
He was in for a rude awakening.
“I had a personal banker, and I went in there and I asked him about all this. He says, ‘well, you're gonna have to get attorneys’,” said Jacobson.
That’s exactly what Jacobson did. Meet attorney James Bonebrake. He’s representing Jacobson in a lawsuit against Citibank.
“What the heck happened? He'd never even known what a wire transfer was,” said Bonebrake.
In a letter from Citibank following up on Jacobson’s fraud claim, they admit they didn’t call Jacobson to get approval for the wire transfers, but they did text and email him.
“We've requested all of that information from Citibank. Citibank has never produced any of the three texts. We've never seen the email,” said Bonebrake.
In court documents, Citibank says they use a third-party vendor to send text messages and emails to customers. Copies of those records are deleted after 60 days, unless the third-party vendor “is otherwise instructed by Citibank to retain the emails and text messages for a longer period of time”.
Despite reporting the fraud and signing fraud affidavits on Oct. 14, 2021, Citibank claims “Jacobson, through counsel, first made demand on Citibank to repay the three wire amounts on Aug. 29, 2022. By that time, [the third party vendor] had already deleted the emails and text messages sent to Jacobson."
Citibank did not respond to our questions about why Jacobson’s records weren’t preserved after he had filed his fraud claim. Citibank also did not respond to our questions about their record retention policy.
In court documents, Citibank says it is “in compliance with all regulations regarding wire transfers”.
“You would think that they would want to preserve, that you would think they would want to get down to the bottom of the of the fraud, not only for Scott’s sake, but for the sake of across the board their entire clientele. And this is what really, really puzzles me and frankly, upsets me as, as a lawyer,” said Bonebrake.
In a statement, Citibank told us:
“We have a great deal of sympathy for those who fall victim to fraud, and we take these matters very seriously. Our team has thoroughly reviewed this claim, and I’m afraid we’re unable to comment while there’s pending litigation on this matter. We encourage customers to visit citi.com/fraudprevention for information on the latest scams and tools to help customers stay safe.”
Jacobson in the meantime has been struggling to pay for his sister’s care without the money from her trust account.
“I had a caregiver for a while helping me out. And then when this all happened, I had a cut her hours because I couldn't afford it anymore. And not only that, I just foreclosing on my house a couple of weeks ago. It pretty much put our family in financial ruins,” said Jacobson.
Jacobson only caught the fraud because he happened to check his bank balance. He suggests others be vigilant of their own account, because you can’t necessarily count on your bank to protect you
“You have to have to look at your finances. Make sure that you know what's happening with them,” said Jacobson.
PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNTS
So how can you make sure your hard-earned money is safe in your bank account?
“Talk to your bank and see what kind of security options it can set up,” said Matthew Goldberg, a banking analyst with Bankrate. “For instance, if you have transaction alerts, set those up on your account. But make sure confirm with your bank that a wire transfer or all transactions would be on there. Talk to your bank to see if they have two-factor authentication.”
Goldberg also suggests using a completely separate email address and password, specifically for your bank account.
You can also ask your bank about a verbal password that would be required to authorize large transactions.
For more tips, visit Bankrate's website.
“It's kind of like having an umbrella with a hole in it in the rain, where it's better than not having anything at all. And all these things are layers of protection to try and protect you the best you can,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg also recommends some proactive steps consumers can take.
“A security freeze a freeze on your credit can be something that people should consider doing. Again, that could prevent somebody potentially from opening up an account in your name, if the banks actually go through goes through a credit bureau during the account opening process,” said Goldberg.
