Banking/Brokerage Account Compromised

[Car-Guy]

Another curiosity question?

Has anyone here had one (or more) of their bank or brokerage accounts compromised? Not just a mistake/error, but money actually stolen from the account(s)!

Personally I'm not interested in CC's being compromised or getting hit with fraudulent charges, since that happens all the time. I'm more interested if you have actually had money fraudulently taken from one of your bank or brokerage accounts. And if so, how did the bank/brokerage handle it once reported.

For me, it's never happen but just curious how often it happens to members and how it was handled by the financial institution(s).

 

[COcheesehead]

Never for me personally.

On another forum a couple members posted about having brokerage account breaches. One seemed to be a family member and Fidelity did nothing because the transaction originated from the owner’s home computer.

The other was a workplace hack on a 401k. Fidelity froze the account for a few weeks and got the money back or made good on the money. I don’t remember the exact details.

 

[MichaelB]

I’ve had 2 extended family members suffer compromised bank accounts, 5 figure thefts each time, and I worked with each to recover the funds. In both cases they were able to recover the funds, but it took considerable effort. First recovery took 4 months, the second took 13 months. In both cases the banks acted badly, pushed back and didn’t cooperate until they had no other option.

 

[pacergal]

One time, but, not a fraud, at least that was the banks explanation.
I had a couple thousand dollar debit post. Seems the bank took someones mortgage payment from our account, at least that was the explanation I got. Took two phone calls and a couple of days for them to rectify it. Seems "they" reversed some numbers on the accounts.

 

[badatmath]

The bank gave away a few hundred dollars in cash to someone not me but it was easily verified and resolved. They had typed in the account number wrong.

 

[Texas Proud]

The company where I used to get a check said they had a problem with someone presenting fake checks.... or something similar... I did not go into the detail with them when I heard about it... I just wanted my dividend check cashed...

 

[Sunset]

We had a bank deposit our check to someone else's bank account. We saw it later that day and returned to the bank to have them fix it.
They took 2 days to fix it and were pretty opaque about where the money went and why it took 2 days to suck it back out and put it in our account.

At work I got an extra $65K deposited to my 401K in error. It took them a couple of months to realize and remove it.

 

[DrRoy]

No.

 

[mountainox]

60K out of a USAA savings account about 4 years ago. Someone wrote a bad check on the account. USAA took about 12 days to refund the money. I closed the account shortly after my money was returned. I suspect it was an inside job.

 

[latexman]

No.

 

[athena53]

This is ancient history, but FWIW: In 1984, a few days before we were to close on a house, about $14,000 disappeared from my then-husband's Merrill Lynch account. Fortunately we didn't need it to close. I still remember the business: "Askari Jewelers". A smaller amount (about $1,000) was taken out a few days later. I spoke to our advisor and she directed us to the Security people, one of whom admitted it looked like an inside job. We had the $$ restored in about a week.

Given the decline in personal service and the increase in frauds I wonder how that would play out now.

 

[Rianne]

An elderly friend had a security message pop up on her computer. Requested data by calling a number to verify it was legitimate. Most of us would have logged out and shut down. She was vulnerable because of inexperience. She gave her account info and thousands were taken from two of her accounts from the same bank. She had to call her son in Chicago to come and help her sort this out. Eventually, the bank reimbursed her.

I don't know if that's true today. If you willingly, although ignorantly give information to a hacker. Is the bank responsible for covering your error? If you allow access or share passwords to a family member to your private accounts and they take your savings? Is the bank responsible?

 

[athena53]

I don't know if that's true today. If you willingly, although ignorantly give information to a hacker. Is the bank responsible for covering your error? If you allow access or share passwords to a family member to your private accounts and they take your savings? Is the bank responsible?

Dad fell prey to a "grandparent scam" -someone pretending to be my niece called and needed $7,500 bail money and he panicked and wired it out of his Fidelity account. He reported it to Fidelity but never recovered the money. Fortunately it was a tiny portion of his assets.

 

[MichaelB]

I don't know if that's true today. If you willingly, although ignorantly give information to a hacker. Is the bank responsible for covering your error? If you allow access or share passwords to a family member to your private accounts and they take your savings? Is the bank responsible?

With payment apps like Zelle, banks are denying reimbursement of some fraudulent transactions because they say the transactions were authorized or initiated by the user.

The Electronic Funds Transfer Act protects consumers from unauthorized transactions carried out by third parties. Sending money to a fraudster is not covered by the regulation. It may be covered by the bank, but the burden is on the user to show the bank should have been aware the transaction was bogus.

 

[Car-Guy]

With payment apps like Zelle, banks are denying reimbursement of some fraudulent transactions because they say the transactions were authorized or initiated by the user.

The Electronic Funds Transfer Act protects consumers from unauthorized transactions carried out by third parties. Sending money to a fraudster is not covered by the regulation. It may be covered by the bank, but the burden is on the user to show the bank should have been aware the transaction was bogus.

Very good info.... I felt sure there was some protections but I wasn't sure what.