Community Chat

[CalminHeart]

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@Still Raining wrote:

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@PickyPicky3 wrote:

Someone tried to transfer money from my friend's Fidelity account to an account that was the same number as her elderly mother's account except for one digit. The Fidelity system caught it, blocked it and alerted her.

Whoa baby! How did that happen?

Not all investment accounts reimburse monies stolen. Make sure yours does.

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If your friend was notified by Fidelity that her account was tampered with and the intended account to receive it had a number just one digit off her mother's account, then she and her mother and the other account can sue.

This violates so many financial privacity laws.....

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I investigated securities and insurance fraud for 20 years of my career.  A lot of things can happen....fraudulent as well as simple input mistakes by customers. It's important to get to the bottom of it without jumping to conclusions.

In this case, were no losses and no one's personal information or accounts were accessed since Fidelity stopped it, so why sue? They'd lose if they tried because Fidelity did the right thing by having adequate security.

[eadu4]

@PickyPicky3   Respectfully I have a couple of questions with this...how did Fidelity contact her?  How did she find out?  Did they call her?  (which to me could have been a scam call) Email?  Which could have been fraudulent, or did SHE contact them back after one of these happened?  I would gone directly to my company myself to find out if this was in fact something that happened.  It sounds more like someone was fishing for her account number and tried saying it was 1 number off to get her to confirm her number.  I have Fidelity and I do not believe they would say "the accounts were one number off". I guess my problem is how she found out.  Is she on her elderly mother's account?  If not how did they know they were related?  Just too many questions.  Yes hackers will try anything.  Yes you do get alerts for credit scams etc...and I guess a Fidelity hack can happen, but again, there are pieces missing.  I wouldn't just take the word of a phone call or an email stating that happened.  Any time my credit card company has alerted me to something "fishy" I call them myself and verify.  

[PickyPicky3]

@eadu4  She got a text asking her to call. Yes, she is on her mother's account as a contact, not a joint account. A sharp person in the fraud department, in looking over her accounts, caught the connection between her mother's account number and the recipient account number. 

My friend and her husband are highly competent at managing their finances. They're very happy at how this situation was handled by Fidelity.

[eadu4]

@PickyPicky3   That's good!  So many people get fooled by texts and emails and the initial reaction is to panic.  Glad there was a good outcome.  

[PickyPicky3]

@CalminHeart  I just don't know if we can say no personal or account info was accessed because of that bizarre connection to the mother's account number. It's clearly not chance. A hacker would have had to see into her accounts to set that up, don't you think? Fidelity had no explanation.

[CalminHeart]

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@PickyPicky3 wrote:

@CalminHeart  I just don't know if we can say no personal or account info was accessed because of that bizarre connection to the mother's account number. It's clearly not chance. A hacker would have had to see into her accounts to set that up, don't you think? Fidelity had no explanation.

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I was a compliance officer for investment accounts, variable/fixed annuities, and life insurance for 20+ years and held other compliance roles my whole career. You'd be amazed at what happens by chance. The accounts are 1 number apart. Any person or simple algorhythm could just be going through numbers until something hit without seeing into accounts. And, yes, you'd also be shocked at the fraud. It sounds like the person called Fidelity's phone number.

Fyi for everyone: Never click or call the phone number in a text or email. I always go to the real website and call the number there.