Watched an old man at my bank not be allowed to wire money out of his account because

The bank will be sorry when the old man is arrested by the CIA and put behind the bars for not wiring them that money.

Hopefully, he can get some gift cards somewhere to pay this and get out of trouble.

The banking regulations are often times a pain in the arse between know your customer AML work another crap but in instances like this, make it worthwhile.

I encourage everyone who has elderly in their lives to insist that elderly person or people have a trusted contact on file with their financial institution and advisors so and just this instance a phone call can be made to that trusted person.

I work for a bank in a job that has nothing to do with retail banking. We are required twice a year to do training on protecting clients even though not involved...the scams out there are pretty good.

Now the poor guy doesn't stand a chance at winning the Nigerian lottery, what the hell....

quote:

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I was happy to see the bank stopping elderly people from getting scammed.

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Our pleasure, sir. Now what method of payment will you be using to pay the Scam Protection Fee?

This happens in banks alot. You'd also be surprised how many family members roll in their granny trying to get her to take out a loan or give them a bunch of money. Those situations are especially awkward because the bank basically has to tell them they think they're thieves right to their face, although the word thief never actually gets said out loud. Elder financial abuse is a constant battle for the banks.

When I worked at the bank, there wasn’t a month that went by where I wasn’t trying to stop some old person from being scammed.

Wires, official checks, money orders. It was sad to see, and often the elderly customer refused to believe they were being scammed.

It happened enough that I told my tellers if an elderly customer comes in wanting a cashiers check or is trying to withdraw a large sum of cash, have them sit at my desk so I can talk to them first.

One time an old man wanted a cashier's check for $5000. The teller brought him to my desk, and I asked him what the money as for. I noticed he only had around $6k in his savings account, and not much in his checking.

"I won Publishers Clearinghouse, and I need to send them this money to claim the prize."

He pulled the letter he received out of his pocket and showed it to me. The print was crooked, had misspellings, and looked like it was photocopied.

"Sir," I said, "this is not a legitimate letter. This is a scam. I highly suggest that you do not send these people your money."

"Its not a scam," he replied. "I want that check now."
I pulled up the Publishers Clearinghouse website and showed him where it said "we will never ask you to send us money to claim a prize."

I showed him how the letter was asking him to send money to an apartment in New York, not some PO Box. He refused to believe it.

I went got the branch manager to speak with him. He got aggravated, looked me in the eye and said "Young man, you give me my money right now."

Not much else I could do at that point. We cut the check and he went on his way.

I contacted our security department and let them know what happened, just in case things went sideways.

The kicker is months later that same old bastard came into the branch and yelled at me for not stopping him from sending those people his money. I guess he never got that prize.