Why do bad things happen to good people?

My sister-in-law is the most giving person I have ever known. She is always giving to others, including the shirt off her back. So when she was scammed out of $44,200 by an elaborate banking scheme, it broke my heart.

I want to encourage everyone to help out Connie in her time of need, as she often has helped all of us.

Protect yourself, protect your families, SPREAD the WORD about this incredibly professional, intricate, multi-level SCAM.

Details:

It started with a text asking about possible fraudulent purchases. When I texted NO, they responded, "We are going to call you now..."

The caller said there were multiple charges for purchases in Texas (Best Buy, Kroger, Target) and that the perpetrators had gotten into my online banking. They had withdrawn money in person with fake ID and more. Basically, they get you so riled up, freaked out, and upset that you can't think straight.

This was totally outside the bank's purview. The scammers had me believing that I was helping with an investigation by the FBI and FDIC of the employees of my branch because they were selling clients' information on the dark web. I was told I was being used as part of an investigation into internal bank fraud and that they needed me to complete some transactions to help with an FBI/FDIC investigation.

It was incredibly intricate, multi-level, speaking to three different people as we went up supposedly higher security levels. During the whole process, I was told that my online banking had been locked, "so don't even try to log in because you won't be able to get in. Someone has been in there trying to make transfers, and so we've locked it so no one can do any more of that." Had I logged in, I would have seen what they were doing.

The scammer was on the phone with me the whole time, having me take money out of my account (listening to my conversation with the teller). Money that they (investigators) supposedly had just put in there for this transaction.

What they had done was move my emergency savings (my life savings) into my checking account and run up my home equity line of credit to its max and moved that into my savings, and then had me make these withdrawals for them with what was actually my money!

She walked me through saying, "They're going to ask you this, they're going to ask you that, they're going to have you sign a form that you won't hold them liable if it turns out to be a scam. Don't worry about that because we will have you on video while you're doing this for us and you know you're safe, just go ahead and sign it, don't worry about it."

I fell for it hook, line, and sinker, not once but three times over two days.

She stayed on the phone while I was in the branch getting the money out. Once I received the money, she said, "Okay, now head to your car, get yourself locked in, and let me know you are safe in your car." Then she said, "Let me have you hold on just a moment." She came back and said, "Okay, the branch manager has pulled the video. Give me a second here while I transcribe your conversation with the teller, and I'll be back in just a moment." She came back on the line and said, "Okay, we've got all that evidence now. Since that is FDIC money, we need you to go to an FDIC bank and deposit it."

(None of this triggered any questions within me.)

She told me which bank to drive to (they know where I am and they tell me where the closest bank is). She stayed on the phone while I was driving there. She had me park in the parking lot. She walked me through putting a debit card on my Google Wallet (supposedly the FDIC account the money had been withdrawn from). She had me go to the drive-thru using that card to put the money back into what I thought was the FDIC fund. She walked me through all the steps on the screen; she knew what the screen was going to say, and she said, "Press here, do this, do this," and then once it said transaction processed, she had me park again. She said, "Now that we've completed that, we really appreciate your help. We need to now take that card out of your Google Wallet," and she walked me through how to do that.

And I freaking fell for it three times! She was on the phone with me almost all day on Wednesday, doing two of them, and then the next morning they called again. It looked like the same phone number that's in my contacts, and there had been another attempt. Can we possibly get you to do one more of these?

They drained my checking account down to $12.46, they drained my emergency savings, basically my life savings, from over $12,000 down to $61.55, and they ran my home equity line of credit up to $39,000, which was the maximum that was available at the time. The minimum payment on the HELOC is $480 a month.

Thank you