longer.blue

Scammed! I want to notify everyone of this embarrassing incident. I was scammed by a phone scheme to the tune of $3000 dollars. I received an email from Huntington bank (or so I thought) saying someone tried to charge my debit card $900 dollars. It asked did I make this transaction. I replied no. This came from the legitimate Huntington number. Less that a minute later I got a phone call from a supposed representative of Huntington. It came from the same phone number on the back of my debit card. This person who I assumed was from Huntington informed me that my debit card had been compromised and that I had to take steps to secure it. He walked me through scenarios that would secure my card, knowing the sequence of each page along the way. At first they were legitimate. Then he asked me if I had used that card in any cash sending apps. I told him yes, in Venmo, PayPal, and Cash Ap. He said that all those had been compromised and needed to be secured and to refund transactions made against them. He walked me through steps on each platform, again knowing the sequence of each page on each platform. At first the transactions were denied. He reassured me that that was correct. He told me that I was reversing charges and that the account was a manager from each entity. Eventually the transactions went through. He assured me this was normal. By then I trusted him and went along. He then told me my savings account had been compromised. He advised me to move everything from my savings into my checking as that account had been secured. I foolishly did that, still unaware that I was being scammed. A left the call with an appointment to receive a call from him the next day. He also told me not to access my account as their investigation would be compromised if I did. Later that night I was running this scenario over in my head. I realized it was a scam. I know numbers can be spoofed but the fact that it was coming from the Huntington number had convinced me. I immediately went into my account and moved everything back to my savings which I know can’t be accessed. I also secured my debit card every way I could. There were no reachable after hours numbers at Huntington, PayPal or Venmo. The transactions had not cleared my Huntington account yet. In the morning I contacted Huntington and put a block on one of the transactions from PayPal and alerted them that the two charges from Venmo were illegitimate and they assured me they would dispute these charges. I put in an online dispute to PayPal explaining all the details. Within 2 hours they declined my dispute, saying the transaction was legitimate. I called Venmo and got a rep who was very nice and took down my complaint and assured me the fraud department would look into it. Tonight I got an email that my complaints had been denied and that the transaction was legitimate. I have been a customer of PayPal for at least 15 years and Venmo for at least 10. I have numerous transactions and accounts for them to research to verify my legitimacy. I’m sure the accounts to whom I erroneously sent money had been established recently and are probably gone now. I identified the criminal accounts to them and gave them explicit descriptions of how the fraud occurred. There is no excuse for either company to not ascertain who was legitimate and who was a criminal. And yet they sided with the criminals against me. This not only insults me but encourages the criminals to continue to use these platforms to steal from people. As far as I’m concerned, PayPal and Venmo are accessories to the crime. They provided the means to defraud me and protected the criminals instead of their long-term customer. I’m waiting to hear if Huntington can help me. If not, I’m out $3000. I will never use these companies again and I recommend you don’t either. When the shit hits the fan, they are not on your side.