Associated Press
- A Wells Fargo customer was tricked into sending a scammer $68,000 of his own money.
- Marc Beardsley told ABC7 he found that $70,000 had been put in his checking account.
- The scammer had managed to transfer money between his savings and checking accounts.
A Wells Fargo customer lost nearly $70,000 after being tricked by a scammer into making a wire transfer, a report says.
ABC7 Eyewitness reported that California man Marc Beardsley was tricked into transferring the money after $70,000 appeared in his checking account.
He said a scammer gained access to his accounts and transferred money from his savings to his checking account.
Beardsley's wife, Rosilyn Nesler, told ABC7 the hacker then called Beardsley and pressured him to "return" the money claiming it had been transferred accidentally.
"He was worried," Nesler told the outlet. "He did not check the savings account to see that it was actually our money ... $70,000 was our money."
The scammer told Beardsley he only had to transfer $68,000 to make up for any trouble caused, leaving him with $2,000.
The couple said they weren't confident they would ever get their money back.
Their son, Tod Beardsley, told ABC7 he was upset that Wells Fargo hadn't queried the unusually large transfer before processing it.
"Anytime you can inject a pause into that process, your chances of not getting scammed go way, way up," he said.
A representative for Wells Fargo told ABC7: "We conducted a comprehensive investigation of this case, and shared the findings with our customer. After a thorough review, we confirmed this matter was handled appropriately by our team."
Wells Fargo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.