I’ll preface by saying I don’t know exactly what the end goal was here, but I had a very strange attempted theft this morning.
Someone called from a number that said it was Wells Fargo, so I answered. They said they were from the fraud protection department, calling to verify some suspicious activity. My card gets hacked once a year or so, usually for pretty small amounts before I notice, so this wasn’t a complete surprise.
They proceeded to list off three charges of varying amounts made in Florida the previous day, where I was not. So I deny those charges. Then they say an internal withdrawal was attempted in Miami which was also denied.
Then they say that someone scheduled a withdrawal for 11am this morning for 18k and they believe an internal teller in my area was working with them to make the withdrawal go through. Said they were conducting an internal investigation to see which teller was helping, and they wanted me to go to my local branch and make the 18k withdrawal myself while they stayed on the phone to “make sure the teller did their job appropriately” WITHOUT telling anyone what was going on.
At this point I thought it was just too weird so I said hold on, let me do this. Let me call Wells Fargo directly and if I can get back to you through them I will believe your story and I’ll help however I can. So give me your name and number, I’ll call them, and if I can successfully get back to speaking with you we can move forward. He begrudgingly said ok, gave me his name and extension, and hung up.
So I call, and lo and behold that person doesn’t exist and that department doesn’t even have extensions. The person I spoke with said it was likely a phishing scam but what I don’t get it how does me making an in person withdrawal of 18k factor into identify theft? Was someone gonna be waiting for me when I walked out with the money?
Anyway, alls well that ends well. Me and my money are safe for now (except from my wife and all my bad habits). But still, a very odd way to start a Saturday
Someone called from a number that said it was Wells Fargo, so I answered. They said they were from the fraud protection department, calling to verify some suspicious activity. My card gets hacked once a year or so, usually for pretty small amounts before I notice, so this wasn’t a complete surprise.
They proceeded to list off three charges of varying amounts made in Florida the previous day, where I was not. So I deny those charges. Then they say an internal withdrawal was attempted in Miami which was also denied.
Then they say that someone scheduled a withdrawal for 11am this morning for 18k and they believe an internal teller in my area was working with them to make the withdrawal go through. Said they were conducting an internal investigation to see which teller was helping, and they wanted me to go to my local branch and make the 18k withdrawal myself while they stayed on the phone to “make sure the teller did their job appropriately” WITHOUT telling anyone what was going on.
At this point I thought it was just too weird so I said hold on, let me do this. Let me call Wells Fargo directly and if I can get back to you through them I will believe your story and I’ll help however I can. So give me your name and number, I’ll call them, and if I can successfully get back to speaking with you we can move forward. He begrudgingly said ok, gave me his name and extension, and hung up.
So I call, and lo and behold that person doesn’t exist and that department doesn’t even have extensions. The person I spoke with said it was likely a phishing scam but what I don’t get it how does me making an in person withdrawal of 18k factor into identify theft? Was someone gonna be waiting for me when I walked out with the money?
Anyway, alls well that ends well. Me and my money are safe for now (except from my wife and all my bad habits). But still, a very odd way to start a Saturday
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