Talked to a veteran teller about wire transfers and she saved me from a big mistake

I was about to send a $4,000 wire to what I thought was a contractor for a home renovation last Tuesday... but the head teller, Margie, who's been at the branch for 20 years, pulled me aside and asked me to double check the account number. She said she'd seen three people lose money to scams that way just this month. Turns out the contractor's email had been hacked and the routing info was fake. I would've been out the cash for sure... has anyone else had a bank employee save them from something like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessa_murray1mo ago

Margie at my credit union did the same thing for me last spring with a $2,800 payment for a new roof. I was all set to send it when the teller, a guy named Tom who has been there forever, asked me to call the roofer directly from a number I already had on file. Turns out the email link in the invoice was a total fake and the account was a scam. I would have been out that money for sure and probably would have never gotten it back. How do these scammers even sleep at night?

simonp761mo ago

Hold on, are we sure scammers are the only ones at fault here? I mean, if someone emails you an invoice and you just blindly pay it without double checking the number you already have, maybe that's on you a little bit. It's like handing your wallet to a guy on the street just because he's wearing a badge. Yeah, they're scumbags, but you gotta take some responsibility for not doing the bare minimum to verify.

dakotab931mo ago

Simon, when Tessa's teller saved her $2,800 just by asking for a phone call, doesn't that suggest the system itself is broken? It shouldn't take a lucky employee to catch what a simple verification step could prevent, right? So why aren't banks and payment apps automatically flagging changes to account numbers on invoices that don't match what's on file?