NW Indiana bank employees stop woman from sending $10K to scammers
LA PORTE, Ind. (WLS) -- Local bank employees stopped a woman from sending $10,000 to scammers.
The I-Team has previously reported on people losing money to sophisticated spoofing calls.
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A northwest Indiana woman walked into her local bank and was just minutes away from withdrawing money.
She was going to bring that money to people who she thought were law enforcement, but it was all a scam.
"I was terrified; the gentleman seemed extremely gruff," Carey Scheck said.
Scheck said it started with a call from a local number.
"They kind of get you in this cycle of thinking, 'well, I guess I have to figure this out. I got to take care of this ... the sense of urgency,'" Scheck said.
The threatening call was from a man impersonating a police officer who told her she failed to show up in court for jury duty and needed to pay up, or he would arrest her.
"Basically, I wasn't allowed to call my husband or my lawyer about this, and he kept me on the phone and kept engaging me, kept kind of intimidate me," Scheck said.
Scheck went into her local Fifth Third Bank in La Porte, Indiana to withdraw the money and drop it off, in-person, to that fake law enforcement agent. But bank employees jumped into action.
"We follow bank protection rules. If we feel that it is still something that's a suspicious situation, we pause right there and we don't give in," said Crystal Holaway, a customer service representative at Fifth Third.
Holaway said she noticed Scheck's transaction was out of the ordinary. Scheck was on the phone with the alleged crooks.
"She then kind of pointed to a phone that she had in her hands. So that's one of the things that we look out for are the red flags," Holaway said.
Manager Kym Lee also helped to stop the scam.
"She was in tears; she was really, really frightened," Lee said. "To talk with the customer and help them to see things from where we are, because a lot of times there is a change in reality, and they feel trapped in the reality that the fraudster has them in."
"Bank impersonation scams between 2024-2025 tripled in volume," said Kris Edwards, Fifth Third head of fraud prevention. "Whether that's us looking and trying to intervene through a detection perspective as we see transactions coming through on the bank side or asking questions as customers process transactions, that's really allowing us to get ahead of this."
Scheck is grateful for the intervention.
"Absolutely, I'm grateful that they were they picked up on the cues and the clues from my face and my demeanor," Scheck said.
Law enforcement and banks will never call or text you and ask you to move money or withdraw money. If you get a call or text like this, ignore it and report it.
