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A CHASE customer has claimed that over $80,000 was completely cleared from their account and was told by the financial services company that they were to blame.
In December 2022, real estate agent Sue Solleder opened her Chase business account to find that at least $81,000 was missing.
Solleder argued that hackers got ahold of her information through wire fraud and made repeated attempts to transfer the funds to other accounts, per Los Angeles CW affiliate KTLA.
The San Diego-based real estate agent claimed that 10 attempts of the hacker’s wire transfers were blocked by Chase, but a following five were allegedly approved.
Receipts provided to the outlet showed that the funds were moved from Delaware to Abu Dhabi.
Solleder was baffled by what happened.
“I just was so shocked,” she told the station.
“I never heard of anybody taking $81,000 from somebody.”
After the activity on her account, Solleder brought the matter to Chase immediately, but she claimed the bank initially refused to reimburse her for the lost funds.
Staff allegedly told the real estate agent that the transfers “were authorized” by her.
Banks like Chase can, per federal banking rules, refuse to compensate those who lost money in transactions if they determine the customer “authorized” said transactions by providing any information that facilitated them.
Initially, Solleder was set to be out of luck, with the large sum lost and no feasible way of getting it back.
According to KTLA, they contacted Chase soon after hearing about Solleder’s story, and the bank noted it would in fact reimburse her for the compete $81,000 lost.
A spokesperson for the financial services company told the outlet that upon further review it was clear that Solleder’s account had been hacked.
Another California-based victim of wire fraud, Martina Boyeras Carbonell, had her life savings taken away from her Chase bank account around the same time as Solleder.
Carbonell claimed a total of $42,000 was fraudulently transferred.
“It’s just very frustrating and very scary,” she told KTLA.
“I feel violated. All my personal information is out and all my savings are gone.”
The customer said that she received several texts and phone calls from hackers who claimed they were Chase employees.
Carbonell claimed they already obtained “my card numbers, my address, my account number, the name of my company, everything.”
On a call with the fraudsters who claimed to be employees, Carbonell said she may have provided the password to her business account, incidentally giving them access.
Similar to Solleder, Chase allegedly told her that they would not compensate her for the loss given that she gave information to the hackers.
The bank later reconsidered after a member of the outlet’s news team told a spokesperson that Carbonell was tricked into giving the information away.
Although it was confirmed that Chase reimbursed both affected parties, Carbonell felt the financial services company needed additional security measures to prevent similar wire fraud scenarios from happening to other customers.
“Their system is weak,” Carbonell claimed.
“Hackers are able to get into personal accounts, business accounts and on top of that, they blame the customer.”
The U.S. Sun has contacted Chase for further details on its security against hackers and the claims made by Solleder and Carbonell.
