Greg's Corner

Do banks only help scam victims when the news gets involved?

By Greg Collier

When we started posting about Zelle scams is when we first discovered how unhelpful banks can be when it comes to those who fell victim to these scams. Scammers will walk the victim through the Zelle app to have them transfer money to the scammers under false pretenses. Since the victim made the actual transaction, many banks will tell the victim they can’t get their money back. To the bank, or so they claim, the transaction looks authentic to them, so they can’t issue a refund to the victim.

However, occasionally, victims will have their money returned to them after they tell their story to their local media. This typically involves the victim going to their local TV news consumer reporter. In turn, the reporter asks the bank for comment, which more often than not results in the bank issuing a refund.

For example, a Massachusetts woman recently fell for a scam which resulted in her bank account being emptied by scammers. She received a call from scammers who were posing as PayPal to tell her there was in issue with her account. The scammers sent her a link to click on, and when she did, scammers took control of her phone. Before she knew it, $3500 was gone from her bank account.

Her bank allegedly denied her claim until her local news station got involved. The bank reportedly claimed they reversed their decision after their decision after the victim provided additional information.

But are these bank refunds a result of the plane crash principle? The principle says that we only hear about the planes that crash, but we don’t hear about the vast majority of planes that continually land safely.

Are banks issuing refunds to scam victims without the media getting involved? We’d like to think they are, but somehow, we doubt it. As someone once told us, banks are in the business of making money, not issuing refunds. Not to mention, if banks started issuing refunds on demand to scam victims, it won’t be long before scammers start claiming they’ve been the victims of scams.

The banks need to implement better initiatives to protect their customers from scammers. Education has not been enough, as scammers often intimidate their victims into ignoring the education. If just one major bank came forward with a new program to protect their customers from scammers, we’re sure it would not only be great PR for them, but they would probably attract many new customers.

However, it will most likely be a long time before that happens. In the meantime, we need to look out for ourselves. If you receive a phone call from any company related to money, like PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, or even your own bank, hang up, and call them back at the company’s official customer service number. You can find these numbers, if the company has one, on their website under the contact section.