Cody Mullenaux and his family. Mullenaux was the victim of a sophisticated wire fraud scheme that has resulted in $120,000 being stolen
Courtesy: Cody Mullenaux
Banks have spent enormous amounts on cybersecurity and fraud detection but what happens when criminal tactics are sophisticated enough to even fool bank employees?
For Cody Mullenaux, it meant having more than $120,000 wired from his Chase checking account with little hope of ever recouping his stolen funds.
The saga for Mullenaux, a 40-year-old small business owner from California, began on Dec. 19. While Christmas shopping for his young daughter, he received a call from a person claiming to be from the Chase fraud department and asking to verify a suspicious transaction.
The 800-number matched Chase customer service so Mullenaux didn’t think it was suspicious when the person asked him to log into his account via a secured link sent by text message for identification purposes. The link looked legitimate and the website that opened appeared identical to his Chase banking app, so he logged in.
“It never even crossed my mind that I was not speaking with a legitimate Chase representative,” Mullenaux told CNBC.
Gone are the days when the only thing a consumer had to be wary of was a suspicious email or link. Cybercriminals’ tactics have morphed into multipronged schemes, with multiple criminals acting as a team to deploy sophisticated tactics involving readymade software sold in kits that mask phone numbers and mimic login pages of a victim’s bank. It’s a pervasive threat that cybersecurity experts say is driving an uptick in activity. They predict it will only get worse. Unfortunately, for victim of these schemes, the bank isn’t always required to repay the stolen funds.
After he was logged in, Mullenaux said he saw large amounts of money moving between his accounts. The person on the phone told him someone was in his account actively trying to steal his money and that the only way to keep it safe was to wire…
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