A Maryland woman was scammed out of $17,000 in her Bank of America bank account after a scammer walked into a California Verizon store with her phone number and obtained a SIM card for her account, shutting off her phone. Then the scammer steals $17K from her Bank of America bank account.
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| Verizon Wireless store |
Scammers continue to find new ways to steal money from hard-working people, even when a person has two-factor authentication on an account.
A Maryland woman learns that even with two-factor authentication, a criminal still accessed her account and took $17K from her with a SIM card swap.
Details on what happened are below.
A Scammer Walks into a Verizon Store with a Woman's Phone Number
7News reported on Wednesday that Sharon Hussey from Maryland was "stunned" after a criminal took control of her account after walking into a California Verizon store with her phone number.
The crook then changed her Bank of America contact information "within minutes" and then took $17,000 from her bank account, even though she had two-factor authentication enabled.
She said:
"I don't know what kind of story they told them, but they bought a new phone, gave them my phone number and were issued a new SIM card, and with that SIM card they can take over everything. I don't know if the could access my banking apps. I don't know what immediate access they had...they could change my Verizon account information, they changed my password, they changed another phone number that was on there, and then they went into Bank of America, and now that they have this phone with my control, they were able to make a sizable withdrawal and when they were sent a code to the phone, they had it." -Sharon Hussey, Verizon customer
She said:
"It was absolutely stunning. My heart dropped to the floor...and the bottom just kind of dropped out." -Sharon Hussey, Verizon customer
When a new SIM card was issued in California, the SIM card in her cellphone no longer worked, and should could no longer get a verification code to her phone, because the scammer was now using her phone number.
She needed to contact Verizon about her phone issues, but when she called Bank of America, she found out that $17,000 had been removed from her account.
She said:
"Initially, I didn't realize how big of a deal it was. I thought I had handled it on the first day by calling the bank, calling Verizon. Figuring things out.” -Sharon Hussey, Verizon customer
Hussey says that the "two-factor authentication" in her particular situation didn't help her.
She said:
"And I have two-factor identification which ended up biting me in the face when it all came down to it. That was the thing that completely hijacked everything. They had complete control of my phone and there was nothing I could do about it." -Sharon Hussey, Verizon customer
7News revealed that the scammer in this situation used two-factor authentication via receiving a text code to access accounts that have this feature enabled.
That's how the scammer gained access to Sharon Hussey's bank account.
In the video below on X.com (formerly Twitter) Sharon explains what happened.
Update to this Story: 24 January 2024
7News reported that Bank of America initially denied her claim for her $17K loss "over the next three months," but did reverse its decision, and decided to refund the money that was stolen from Sharon Hussey's account.
Thoughts
Now it is time for the reader to share your thoughts on the story.
- Did you know this type of SIM scam existed?
- What would you do if someone stole your phone number?
- Do you use two-factor authentication to protect your accounts?
Please help others stay informed about this story by sharing this article on social media.
Sources
Scott Taylor's account on X.com (formerly Twitter): @ScottTaylorTV
Sharon Hussey on Facebook.
Taylor, Scott. "Maryland woman loses $17K in SIM card swap scam despite two-factor authentication." WJLA 7News. 24 January 2024.
Bank of America's website.
Verizon's website.
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