“I had gotten two phone calls, and so the third phone call, I answered, and it popped up saying Charles Schwab,” Willard told our sister station WSB’s consumer investigator Justin Gray.
The Brookhaven resident and elementary school teacher said when she picked up, she was told there were fraud attempts on her Charles Schwab bank account.
Willard was told there was a suspicious attempted wire transfer for thousands of dollars.
“I was panicked because I was like, oh my gosh, that’s most of our money, that is about to be gone,” she said.
But it turned out the woman on the phone was not with Charles Schwab, she was the criminal.
A Charles Schwab spokesperson tells WSB in a statement:
“The distressing trend of imposter fraud by criminals is emblematic of a growing trend across the industry. According to the FTC, imposter scams such as this one were the biggest schemes of 2023 and show no signs of slowing in 2024 as they run rampant across social media and elsewhere. By tricking people into voluntarily giving up access to their personal information, these criminals steal money from the vulnerable and unsuspecting. And both the private sector and law enforcement struggle to retrieve those funds once they are gone. The only foolproof protection is prevention. We continue to urge our clients to be cautious, remain vigilant in protecting their personal information, and stay skeptical when it comes to financial transactions.”
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