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OGDEN — Julie Olsen's troubles began in the middle of the night when someone hacked her email. From there, they got into her bank account.
"They were able to change the phone number on my bank account and gained access that way," she said.
The crooks reset her banking password and concealed their moves by changing her email settings.
"I wasn't alerted as to what was going on," she said.
By the time Olsen woke up the next day, about $1,200 was gone — transferred out of her account.
"They sent a portion of the money to one email address and a portion to another," Olsen showed.
Once she finally regained access, Olsen saw all the clear evidence of the hack. Someone had logged into the email account from Russia.
Turned down by her own bank
But despite all that evidence someone had impersonated her to steal her money, Olsen says her bank shot down her claim for a refund — twice.
"They still looked at it and said they found no error," Olsen said.
Frustrated, Olsen decided it was time to Get Gephardt.
Consumers hit with unauthorized electronic transfers have protections under what's called 'Regulation E.' It's a federal rule that says if someone is a victim of a fraudulent transfer, the bank should restore the stolen money.
Issue resolved
Get Gephardt reached out to Olsen's bank, Chime, to ask why she isn't protected under Regulation E. Their communications team responded right away writing, "Chime takes matters like this very seriously and our member services team has looked into this matter, which has been resolved in the member's favor."
Within hours, Olsen had her $1,200 back.
"It's really a lot to me," she said.
Experts suggest consumers do two things you can do help keep hackers from cracking open their bank account:
- Switch on the two-factor authentication;
- Use unique logins and passwords;
Since many consumers tend to reuse their logins, a hacker who gets access to credentials from one account often uses the same ones to break into other services.
