How did this San Diego grandma recover $147K lost to phone scam | NBC 7 San Diego

Judith Anderson can’t believe the response she ultimately received from her bank after a scammer drained close to $150,000 from her account. “My son and my daughter, we got on Facetime and they said, ‘You have your money back,’ and I was just overwhelmed,” she said in a quivering voice. Her daughter Tracy Martinez was sitting next to her and held her hand throughout an interview with NBC San Diego. Her bank credited Anderson’s account with $147,000 she thought was lost forever. Money she had set aside to help pay for her husband’s hospice care.

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[mortsims]

this woman needs her kids to take over her business dealings. my sister and i had to do that with my mother.

[karin]

I got a call recently from my bank's fraud department about suspicious activity. There was a phone number for me to call back. But I didn't call that number and instead looked up the bank's number and got through to fraud that way. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed and I can see myself falling for something like this in a panic. So I never use phone numbers or links provided, but find the number myself, just to be on the safe side.

[isabellegarcia]

People need to wake up, stop anwering phone, theres scams, someone manage her money.😮

[Mhel]

Most banks have alert settings that have to be configured by the user, that allows texts and/or emails to be sent when there are international transactions, charges over a certain amounts, withdrawals, password changes, etc. Daughter's number or email should be configured on those alerts as well as grandma's

[StrMaddeness]

What planet do these people live on? These scams are well known.

[RoyalPurpleStar]

Why can’t people just not answer any calls and instead call their own banks by looking up the number listed on the banks’ website?

[SkepticalRaptor]

The bank shouldn’t have given her back the money. She was a moron to fall for scammers, and it’s not the bank’s obligation to help out morons. Every step along the way, this woman should have wondered what was going on. Wells Fargo made the wrong choicet here. Now they’ll have to help out everyone who stupidly gets scammed.

[terriesmith]

She's lucky the bank was willing to make her whole bc she willingly wire her money to the scammer. She must be living under a rock 🪨 because this scam is well known.