Emily Willard was sitting on the beach with her two toddlers and her husband when the phone started ringing with emergency calls from the bank.
“I had gotten two phone calls, and so the third phone call, I answered, and it popped up saying Charles Schwab,” Willard told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray .
The Brookhaven resident and elementary school teacher said when she picked up, she was told there were fraud attempts on her Charles Schwab bank account.
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Willard was told there was a suspicious attempted wire transfer for thousands of dollars.
“I was panicked because I was like, oh my gosh, that’s most of our money, that is about to be gone,” she said.
But it turned out the woman on the phone was not with Charles Schwab, she was the criminal.
The fraudster was impersonating the bank to get banking information and an access code from the Willards.
“I hung up the phone and checked my email and it said all of my money had been transferred,” she said.