Couple lost $42K to a scam in 2024 and they’re still fighting with the bank to get it back. How to protect your finances

Tom and Ann Hill thought they were conscionable doing what their slope told them to do.

But arsenic the Florida mates shared with News4JAX, those instructions allegedly came from a fraudster who managed to bilk the mates retired of their beingness savings (1).

• Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you tin present go a landlord for arsenic small arsenic $100 — and no, you don't person to woody with tenants oregon hole freezers. Here's how

• Dave Ramsey warns astir 50% of Americans are making 1 large Social Security mistake — here’s what it is and 3 elemental steps to hole it ASAP

• I’m astir 50 years aged and person thing saved for retirement. What bash I do? Don’t panic. Here are 6 casual ways to drawback up (and fast)

In January 2024, the Hills were targeted by a blase impersonation scam that resulted successful $42,000 being taken retired of their slope account. Two years later, the mates is inactive warring to get that wealth backmost from their bank, JPM Chase, which precocious denied their assertion and closed the case.

Since the Hills are successful their 70s and unrecorded connected a fixed income, their communicative serves arsenic a cautionary communicative for older Americans who are often targeted by these elaborate schemes.

The ordeal began erstwhile Ann received a substance connection to corroborate a ligament transportation astir 2 years ago. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), texting is simply a communal maneuver that scammers often usage to marque archetypal interaction with their targets (2).

As Ann shared with News4JAX, she did not reply to the substance and alternatively decided to telephone the telephone fig connected the backmost of her debit paper to talk straight with a JPM Chase representative. Knowing amended than to reply to a random substance message, Ann took a safer way of probe that user advocates often recommend.

But that, unfortunately, wasn’t capable to support the Hills from this scam. After her telephone with the JPM Chase rep had ended, the Hills received a telephone from idiosyncratic other claiming to beryllium from the bank. That expected JPM Chase rep was reportedly the scammer who had sent the archetypal substance connection that got this ordeal started. Investigators accidental the caller had “spoofed” JPM Chase’s existent telephone number, making the telephone look to beryllium morganatic connected caller ID.

According to News4JAX’s reappraisal of the constabulary report, The Hills’s slope relationship was flagged connected January 18, 2024, and should person been suspended. A information of the constabulary study notes that “Ann advised that she inquired astir the text, and was told the relationship would beryllium suspended.” But aboriginal that day, $22,000 was transferred retired of the Hills’s slope account, with different $20,000 transportation occurring the adjacent time connected January 19, 2024.