Pittsburgh area woman’s bank account wiped by hacker pretending to be bank rep.

A Washington County woman’s bank account was cleaned out and closed by a hacker pretending to be a bank representative Monday.Rosemarie Hall shared her story with Pittsburgh’s Action News 4. She says she believed PNC was warning her about a possible fraud alert, but the opposite was actually happening.“The fact is I have zero dollars. Every account with my name on it is zero or negative,” Hall said.On Monday, Hall got a text from what she thought was PNC Bank saying her debit card was attempted to be used at Walmart in another state.“I’ve gotten similar texts like that before from many companies, so I texted no,” Hall said.In fact, the message was on the same text chain she regularly uses with PNC. Then minutes later, a man, who said he was with the bank, called about the same fraud alert confirming her card was being used.“He knew all of my security questions for PNC. He asked them,” Hall said.After going through those steps, Hall says she was told it was a mobile app issue, and the representative needed her user ID, but she still wanted to make sure it was legit.“I said, ‘how do I know you are from PNC?’ He said, ‘well you can look up the number, and I looked up the number, and the number he was calling me from was the number that was on the back of my debit card,” Hall said.Hall gave the caller her user ID, and seconds later, she was hacked.“Boom, boom, boom … that’s when everything happened,” Hall said.Hall’s password was changed, her money was gone and her account was locked. She dialed back the same exact number, but this time, she got the real PNC.“I feel like I am a smart person, and I feel like I am safe. This seemed real,” Hall said.We talked to a cyber expert about these types of cases. He says you should always be suspicious.“These people are sophisticated, and people who have plenty of cyber training in their jobs sometimes fall prey to this stuff. We see it with big companies, people in government, politics, you name it,” said Chris Deluzio, the policy director at Pitt Cyber.We reached out to PNC about Hall’s case. They said they provided the information to its security group and are further investigating.As of Tuesday night, Hall said nothing has been resolved and she has not been refunded.“Our money is gone and my 90-year-old mother who lives off of social security, because my name is on her account, and this is what I am most upset about, because my name is on her account, her money was stolen also and that is not OK. I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. People need to know,” Hall said.UPDATE:Hall said Thursday that PNC has replenished her account.Following Hall’s story, other PNC customers told WTAE they had been subject to similar scams.PNC spokesperson Marcey Zwiebel sent WTAE a statement that says in part:”PNC is fully committed to protecting the security and privacy of our customers. As cybercriminals have begun to shift their approach by targeting consumers directly through known and trusted channels of communication, we have become aware of sophisticated scams involving fraudulent outreach via text, e-mail and phone calls that appear to be initiated by PNC but instead are being sent by a malicious third party in hopes of receiving our customers’ personal or account-related information.”Ashley Vojtecky of McKees Rocks said her family’s account was hacked in a different way.She said she got an email from PNC last month saying someone in New Jersey had accessed their account.”And five minutes after we got that email, our bank account was wiped clean,” Vojtecky said.PNC told them someone had sent a payment from their account using Zelle — a cash payment app that Vojtecky said they had never used. But PNC denied their claim and said the Zelle transfer was valid.PNC told WTAE that they are continuing to investigate the Vojtecky case.On Friday, Vojtecky said PNC has replenished her account.”We didn’t get any answers or anything resolved before you came and once you came and the news came, then it was resolved and we were able to get our dispute handled,” she said.Other victims are still waiting to get their money.Jennifer Michelangelo of Uniontown said hackers stole $1,999 from her PNC account. She said she gave her account ID to a caller from a number that Caller ID said was PNC.”I thought how would he send me a passcode if he’s not from PNC Bank so I gave him my user name and as I did that I noticed I got an email that said someone had logged onto my account in Fort Lauderdale,” Michelangelo said.”I started to cry because I feel stupid. I feel victimized. I feel angry. I feel violated and I feel embarrassed,” she said.Experts said people should never respond to emails or text messages even if they appear to come from their bank.”It’s always best to reach out directly to the source even if it appears it’s coming from that actual phone number or an actual email address of that company,” said Caitlin Driscoll of the Better Business Bureau.Zwiebel of PNC said:”Heightened awareness about these tactics is the best defense. If an unexpected text, email or phone call is received that appears to be from PNC, we recommend the following:Do not click on provided text or email links in fraud alerts;Do not respond to requests for personal or financial information like credit card numbers, Social Security numbers or other banking details as PNC will never ask for personal or banking credentials by phone, text or email; If you did not initiate a call, and are contacted by an individual claiming to be from PNC, disconnect the call and then call PNC directly using a phone number from a known source;Forward suspicious emails to PNC Abuse (abuse@pnc.com) and forward screenshots of fraudulent text messages that appear to be from PNC to PNC Abuse (abuse@pnc.com);PNC customers who believe they may have responded to a fraudulent text or e-mail and disclosed personal or account-related information, should immediately change their PNC online and mobile banking ID and password, then contact us directly at 888-PNC-BANK or 888-762-2265.Visit the Security and Privacy Center on pnc.com for more information on the prevention, detection and remediation of these types of scams.”Click here to get answers to your banking questions from HelpWithMyBank.gov.

— to www.wtae.com

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