Troop Bank Account robbed by wire transfer

[RememberSchiff 3688]

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, Long Island (WABC) --

A troop of Boy Scouts on Long Island became the victims of a scammer who stole nearly $10,000 from their checking account.

Troop 517 in Rockville Centre works hard to raise money for their trips. It took almost a year to save up nearly $10,000, but only a few seconds for someone to steal it out of the scout account at Astoria Bank.

The troop leaders were shocked to see their balance wiped out by a wire transfer to another account at another bank. They learned someone scammed the scout account number and used it to pay off a credit card in Europe.

The second shocker, a little-known rule; business and charity account holders have just 1 business/banking day to report fraud to their bank. Since the scouts didn't report it for weeks, their claim was denied.

The scoutmasters appealed to the bank but got nowhere even the Boy Scout sponsor was losing faith.

"So many people put up roadblocks and I thought it was a lost cause," Pastor David Grainson said.

[Channel] 7 on your Side was prepared for the challenge, we asked Astoria [bank] to take a second look and, hopefully, reconsider.

Scoutmaster, Barry Goldman gave the good news, "Today, as of today all of our money has been restored."

Astoria [bank] said the generous gesture was a courtesy to the local Boy Scouts, even though the bank tried but couldn't recover their stolen funds.

And they surprised [Channel 7] Nina Pineda by making her an honorary junior scoutmaster! (Hmm, first of course, she would be made an Honorary Scout  )

Now the scouts have their funds to make their scheduled scout trip to Williamsburg after all.

 

http://abc7ny.com/news/boy-scouts-need-help-after-bank-fraud/1242236/

 

 

[qwazse 4348]

Would be nice to know how the fraud was committed.

Stolen check? debit card?

[Krampus 696]

Given you need bank account numbers, SWIFT codes and everything else, I am stunned that the bank cannot trace the destination of the funds. Unless the funds went to somewhere in the old Eastern bloc, Greece or elsewhere in Europe with lesser banking regulations. If the funds went anywhere in western Europe they should be able to find them.

[RememberSchiff 3688]

Definitely a lot of questions to ask.

 

Did the bank or customer have any limits/safeguards on transfers from that checking account, e.g., total amount of transfer, number of transfers/day, transfer destination,..?

 

I doubt the CO or troop will ever know for sure.

 

I wasn't aware of the 1 day reporting restriction. Ouch.

 

My $0.02 and it's staying under my mattress,

[Krampus 696]

...plus anything 10k or over hits the Homeland Security radar too.

 

With all the signatures and account codes needed, someone must have had their home computer hacked to get all that information. You simply don't just open an app and transfer that amount of cash...unless someone had a jail-broken iPhone and got hacked like that.

[meyerc13 85]

I happen to work in the Information Security field, and while I don't know the specifics of this case I have heard similar stories.  One which has public details happened a number of years ago, but makes for interesting reading:  http://www.infoworld.com/article/2642021/security/phishers--almost--scam-grocery-giant-out-of--10-million.html

 

In that case, the funds were recovered because the destination account was at a US Bank, and the funds were still in the account.  Needless to say, scammers have gotten smarter, and there often isn't a happy ending.  My bet on what happened is some type of social engineering as seen in the SuperValu case, and not some highly technical explanation.

[blw2 433]

As a new treasurer, I have given this security thing some thought.  I have fairly strong passwords for my online banking and such, but with so many signers.... and over time signers on accounts coming and going... it seems like it could get easily out of control.  i really don't like having so many fingers in the pot.... but that's the way it is...

 

hummm...I think I'll see about setting up some alerts of some sort.

[SSScout 1616]

Forwarded this to our Troop Treasurer for consideration.