TL;DR at the bottom.
I thought I was the smart one for not falling for a bank scam. Turns out my money still got taken anyways.
About an hour ago, I got a call while I was on the toilet from what appeared to be my bank from an unverified, unrecognized number. I say unrecognized as I got a call from my bank not too long ago and it was a different number. I had seen that there have been bank fraud calls going around and I thought I was the “victim” of one. I answer the phone, and a lady instantly starts saying how she got off the phone with my mother and that there’s suspected fraud on my account pertaining to some crypto website.
Instantly, I noticed something was wrong; normally when my bank calls, they identify that they’re speaking with me by asking security questions, and THEN go on to explain the issue. So this threw me for a loop and I instantly assumed it was a scam. So, regrettably, I started going off on her. I started demanding her to provide details about myself and my mom if she really does have my account pulled up. She says one moment and stammers, leading me to believe she didn’t even have my account pulled up initially and struggled to find my name, which set off another alarm internally. At this point, I recognized it as a scam. I check my account, and low and behold, no money has been moved. Thus, I promptly called her an asshole and to fuck off and I hung up.
My mom texts me about five minutes later asking why did I hang up on that lady, and that there was suspected fraud on my account. This threw me for a loop, and I explained that I thought it was a scam call and outlined the reasons above. I then check my banking app and that’s when I see ALL of my money has been transferred to a random account.
My heart sank. I profusely apologized to my mother and then called my bank back and explained the situation. After about thirty minutes, the bank filed a dispute and is now working on getting my funds back. The kicker here is that I have bills due in three days. And they said the earliest I would either get my funds or some sort of credit would be ten business days. I don’t get paid until the 11th. I’m already a broke college student. I barely have enough food to last ten days, and maybe enough gas to get me to and from work.
I’m fucked. All because I assumed I was being scammed. I feel like such an idiot and an asshole.
TL;DR I hung up on my banks fraud prevention like an asshole thinking it was a scam. This led to the fraud being approved and all of my money being stolen.