A resident of Skokie, Illinois is suing banking giant Citibank on behalf of his disabled sister over the sudden disappearance of $120,000.
Scott Jacobson says his mother left $150,000 in a Citibank trust account to pay for the expenses of his 65 year-old sister, who’s been fighting Alzheimer’s disease for years, reports NBC Chicago.
Jacobson says that caring for her disabled sister was manageable until October 14th, 2021, when he realized thieves somehow stole $120,000 from the account.
“I was shaking because I was more concerned about my sister than I was about anything else.”
According to Jacobson, a Citibank teller told him that someone made three international wire transfers from Bangkok, Thailand, which he says he never authorized.
In his effort to recoup the funds, Jacobson says he filed three fraud affidavits with the lending titan on the same day, expecting the bank to get to the bottom of the case. However, a bank representative told him that he should seek help from the US justice system.
“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.’”
Jacobson also says he did not receive any notifications about the wire transfers.
Although the bank says it did not get Jacobson’s approval before greenlighting the wire transfers, Citibank says it did alert him via text and email, and is “in compliance with all regulations regarding wire transfers.”
Jacobson says he filed fraud affidavits on October 14th, 2021, but Citibank argues that he took legal action long after the 60-day record-keeping deadline had passed.
“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.”
