SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — It started with a legitimate text and ended with nearly $19,000 lost from her bank account.
Juli Di Piazza of Sioux Falls is a Levo customer who said Wednesday that about $19,000 was fraudulently removed from her account on Dec. 22 but it was back by New Year’s.
Di Piazza said that she had received a legitimate text from Levo before a fake text asked her a question and then, she made the mistake of clicking the link attached to the fake text.
Her mistake allowed fraudsters to withdraw the money within 12 minutes of her clicking the scam link in the fake text, Di Piazza said.
There are phone call and direct mail fraud schemes but texting messages to get a person to click on a fake website link also happens, Jen McKeown, the vice president of marketing and business development said in a statement to KELOLAND News.
“I absolutely know better,” Di Piazza said of misjudging the fake text and clicking the link. She worked in the banking industry and frequently checks her accounts.
Now, Di Piazza is curious about how the money was recovered, but she’s also telling herself to “let it go.”
“I’m grateful (to Levo) for getting it back to me,” Di Piazza said.
Di Piazzo notified Levo when she learned of the scam.
Levo could not comment specifically on Di Piazzo’s account but did provide a general response on the potential to recover fraud money.
” …in rare cases with early warning, we have been able to stop the fraud before the withdrawal is finalized,” McKeown said in her statement. “In those cases, we freeze the account until we determine if the requested transaction is legitimate. If we confirm with the member that it is not a legitimate transaction, we stop the transaction and recover the funds if the withdrawal is not finalized.”
But Di Piazza also believes her curiosity may have helped in the recovery of her money.
When she filled out a written statement of fraudulent transactions, Di Piazzo noted that the money was withdrawn in 13 transactions.
“It started with $900…,” she said. Then the fraudsters moved on to $1,500 withdrawals.
“Then they upped it to $2,000,” she said.
Di Piazzo had worked in commercial banking including as a document specialist.
She examined the information attached to the transactions. “It had all these letters…,” Di Piazzo said. “I thought it looked really sketchy.”
Her son traced the information to an apparent Facebook page with an apparent local name attached.
“I took a picture of the profile on Facebook,” Di Piazzo said. She also took a photo of the transaction information. Both were given to Levo officials and the detective from Sioux Falls Police.
Di Piazzo still has questions of how quickly a fraudster was able to remove money from her account without causing any alarm in the credit union’s system. “I couldn’t do that,” she said of the frequent withdrawals.
McKeown said an option for customers is account alerts – including log-in alerts. “Members can monitor log-ins and transactions on their accounts. If a log-in is not legitimate, they can disable their account from their phone or computer and contact us right away,” she said in her statement.
Levo was responsive when Di Piazza reported the fraud. When she able to go into the credit union branch in person, officials explained the fake text. “The only difference in the fake text was Levo will never include a link,” Di Piazza said. The fake text also put an extra period in the name of Levo, she said.
At 70 and although retired, Di Piazza said she and her husband still work part-time. The $19,000 was part of their life savings. And while she doesn’t consider herself as someone who would have been vulnerable to a scam, “I learned my lesson.”
Di Piazza is not the only customer of a credit union or bank to be a scam victim.
McKeown said Levo has heard from many other banks and credit unions that scammers are using phone numbers with calls and texts.
