Caught cheating: Seniors and banks in Texas fight against financial exploitation

FORT WORTH — The second she hung up the phone, Phyllis Lopez knew she had been cheated.

“All I can say is that I was stupid that morning because I just didn't understand all of this,” said the 71-year-old Fort Worth resident.

The scheme began with a text message about a fraudulent charge. Then came a phone call with the ID “Chase Bank.” The caller pretended to be a bank representative and told Lopez that her savings account had been hacked. To protect her money, she had to transfer all $3,500 she had in her savings account to a new account.

“I believed everything he told me,” she said. “And then right before he hung up, he said, 'Okay, Ms. Lopez,' and then he said, 'ha,' like he was laughing at me.”

With Lopez's heart sinking, she rushed to Chase Bank in Fort Worth and begged them to stop the transfer.

“They said, 'Ms. Lopez, there's really nothing we can do about it because you initiated it, you pushed the button.' I felt sick.”

Lopez, still reeling from the death of her adult son, said she was ashamed and devastated.

“I just felt like the whole world had collapsed on me,” she said.

Texas banking law prevents some frauds but does little to help others

In 2017, Republican Senator Tan Parker of Flower Mound authored the Protection of Vulnerable Adults from Financial Exploitation Act, which gives Texas bankers the power to freeze a bank account if they suspect the account holder has fallen victim to fraud.

Since the law came into force, the number of reports from financial institutions to the Adult Protection Service has increased significantly, from 3,600 reports in 2017 to over 6,400 in 2023.

“I think all of these reports are incidents where we were able to prevent a crisis or a nightmare for a senior citizen,” Parker said.

However, some consumer advocates said the state law does not go far enough to protect seniors.

The Republican state senator said the law was successful, but added that more needs to be done.

The state legislature recently appropriated funds to study this problem. Based on the results of this study, Parker plans to introduce several bills to prevent these scams and provide new ways to recover stolen assets.

Fraud victim sues bank for “inadequate protection”

Two years ago, 77-year-old Shirley Ison-Newsome lost more than $50,000 in an elaborate scam. The next morning, she rushed to the Chase branch in Dallas, where a bank employee assured her that her transfer to China had been discovered in time.

A few days later, Ison-Newsome said, Chase changed its story and told her the transaction had gone through.

Ison-Newsome sued Chase for failing to protect her.

Federal court documents show that before completing the transfer, Chase contacted Ison-Newsome to confirm the transaction and warned that it was irreversible. But the court also found that the bank did not tell her that it had detected fraudulent conduct.

The case was settled in an undisclosed agreement.

“It cannot be that at the end of the day it is simply too bad, especially when, what is important, [Ison-Newsome] was extremely vigilant,” said her attorney, Will Brewer IV, a partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors. “She immediately alerted her trusted financial institution. That's all you would expect someone to do to rectify the situation.”

In a statement on the Lopez and Ison-Newsome cases, a Chase spokesperson told CBS News Texas: “Ms. Lopez and Ison-Newsome have been victims of sophisticated fraud. The best way to avoid this type of fraud is to not send money to people you don't know.”

Chase has also provided a list of fraud prevention tips:

• Protect your personal account information, ATM PINs, and passwords. If someone contacts you and asks for this information, especially if it is someone claiming to be from your bank, do not give it to them.
• If you want to be sure that you are speaking to a legitimate representative of the company that contacted you, call the number on the company's official website.
• If you want to be sure you are speaking to a legitimate representative of your bank, call the number on the back of your card or visit a branch.
• Never click on suspicious links in a text or email, and never give anyone remote access to your phone or computer.
• Do not respond to phone, text or internet requests for money or access to your computer or bank account. To prevent fraud, banks will never call, text or email you asking you to send money to yourself or someone else.
• For more information about common scams and ways to protect yourself, visit: www.chase.com/security-tips.