A woman who watched scammers steal $46,000 from her bank account says she went all-out after JPMorgan Chase denied her claim.
California resident Amanda Moon says her phone was recently taken over by thieves in a SIM-swap attack, reports ABC 7 News.
Moon says the loss turned her life upside down when Chase rejected her claim for reimbursement.
“I had to stop working. I wasn’t able to take care of my kids. It was like, it was kind of like I was mentally like, just… It was very distressing.”
But instead of backing down, Moon launched an assault of her own by also contacting Wells Fargo, which is where the criminals transferred her money, and by contacting Comcast Xfinity, her phone service provider.
She also reached out to the Better Business Bureau and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB).
But all those efforts also fell flat.
That’s when Moon contacted the investigative news team at ABC 7 and had a lawyer/friend of hers send a letter to the bank.
Eventually, those two additional moves appeared to tip the scales in her favor.
“I don’t know. I think it was like a cumulative thing or I don’t know if that made Chase change their minds. They ended up giving the money back. All of it.”
ABC 7’s investigative news team recommends victims of banking fraud “contact everyone you can think of and don’t stop trying” to force financial institutions into doing right by their customers.
According to the FBI, $68 million was in SIM-swapping scams in 2021, a major jump over the $12 million stolen between 2018 and 2020.
