Woman sounds alarm on sophisticated wire transfer fraud l GMA

Always contact your bank directly and ask if there is a problem. Never do anything a text or caller asks you to do.

It appears that you can have hundreds of stories like this covered over the space of years and people will still fall for it.

There should be a harsh punishment for these thieves

Don't answer texts or phone calls directly. If they say they are a bank, don't answer, and call your bank directly. I use the number on the back of my debit card.

The bank will never call you unless it's Collections!! -Former Bank Employee

I don’t answer the phone at all, unless its work. Been doing it for the last 5 years. Works great.

If you receive a call from your ‘bank’ regarding unusual account activity, do not get into it with the caller. Ask for their name, customer service ref and department information - then hang up. You can then call your bank's official number using a different phone/number and ask for confirmation while making sure to include the aforementioned details. Your high street bank branch can also help. Prior to their call, your bank would have locked your account if legitimate dubious activity had occurred. Hence, money cannot leave your account without through due-diligence Panic is the key to a scammers success.

Damn I hate people who scam people! Dont they have anything better to do beside than to hurt people?

Everyone should have the right to opt out of the ability to wire transfer in their account.

If you get a text from your bank, you need to login to your app and check yourself. Never click on unknown links.

Our neighbor had purchased the property and on the closing date she received an email from what looked like the bank with a link to send the money. They thought it was legit as the scammers knew their closing date. They approved 75,000 down payment to the link and it went to the offshore hackers. The money was unrecoverable. Grrrrr

ALWAYS call your bank immediately after a call like this. Never just trust someone that calls you. I had a scammer even call me stupid for not letting him help me. Nope. I hung up and called my bank

Please don't victim shame. It take a lot of courage for someone to come forward to help and try to help like this on a national level. People always assume it will never happen to them but this stuff happens. We need to change the law!

I had a scary incident too, having issues with unemployment payments and got a guy who went over it with me work it out and I get a text stating "it's been held up because the card hasn't been activated" and scary thing they knew exactly how much, they knew the first 6 numbers of card, and the timing on it was almost too convenient like scammers have a backdoor to the unemployment offices and they knew this money was going to get allocated. Now I knew better because I know they wouldn't text me that info, plus the scammers were lazy and it was from a different state, but damn for it to happen a couple days after I got off the phone with the place... yeah definitely scary scary.

Your bank NEVER calls you. They send you information, usually mail or email, asking YOU to call them if they suspect fraud.

Y'all failed to give the simplest advice to combat this: the one-time codes should only be given over the phone if you have called the bank. Do not give these codes over the phone if the "bank" has called you.

Hang up and call your bank directly..the bank will never ask you to enter the fraudulent account number! They won't do that at all

The thing about all these scams is the victim is contacted and the victim responds. Don't pick up the phone on non known callers/numbers. Caller ID can be spoofed. Don't answer to anything you did not initiate.

Government should enforce a law to educate consumers before they can open a bank account. "Banks will NEVER contact you and ask for your bank details."

if I got a call like this I would hang up and call my bank myself....or head over to their office. never give any info over the phone....no reputable institution would ask you to do that.