‘I spent hours and hours on the phone’: Man gets $1,900 back after issue with online banking

CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT)—A Chesterfield man is relieved after months of trying to resolve issues with Wells Fargo.

“I’ll say that I was cautious before all this. Now I’m downright paranoid,” said Lloyd Chaser.

He spent months dealing with online banking issues after his Chase card was hacked and his credit card points were stolen.

“Chase pretty much immediately put the points back, then Chase again got hit through my PayPal account. Somebody got $179 without my consent; I had a PayPal account. I got that money back pretty quickly,” he said.

Chaser also dealt with his Virginia Credit Union account being hacked.

“[It] gets hacked to the tune of nearly $16,000. I called Virginia Credit Union. They looked at it. Somebody opened up a checking account in my name at Virginia Credit Union. That money I got back,” Chaser said.

While resolving with J.P. Morgan Chase and Virginia Credit Union, Chaser noticed an issue with his Wells Fargo account.

“I’ve spent hours and hours and hours on the phone, in person, and here we are, months later,” he said. “June 2024, I believe. I looked at my Wells Fargo bill pay account, and I’m going down the list of my bill pay, and I see a Capital One credit card for $1,990.”

Chaser says a Capital One credit card was added to his Wells Fargo account, and his money was used to pay the balance of the unknown Capital One card.

“I am not a Capital One customer. I can kind of see how they would think that, you know, if I had a son or a daughter or somebody and they’re like ‘dad or whomever, you know, can you make a payment for me?’ I don’t have any kids. There’s nobody that I did that for,” explained Chaser.

After contacting Wells Fargo, he said the bank had started investigating the situation. He was later sent multiple denial letters and an affidavit that included what the bank said was Chaser’s browser history. Wells Fargo says the denial was because its research showed the transaction was made through a secure online banking session by Chaser or someone with his authority.

“I’ve talked to a friend of mine who’s in cybersecurity that a hacker can mimic my computer and make it look like I’m the one they’re doing the transaction,” he said.

Cyber security expert Alex Nette, founder of Hive Systems, says that is true. Nette thinks it can be hard for someone to prove their case to a bank.

“It becomes really hard to prove that it is not him, even though he didn’t put his fingers on the keyboard--this individual is stuck in a position where there has been some impersonation, and so, as a result, the bank can’t possibly tell if it was or wasn’t him,” said Nette.

Nette says hackers could have accessed Chaser’s usernames and passwords via his desktop or laptop computer.

“Oftentimes, there is another paper trail that comes in, and that is account-level activity,” Nette said. “For example, if someone logged in at a weird time on that account, say at 2 am, they went into bill pay and added the credit card as an option, and it’s not associated with the individual in any way or form--that might be enough to overturn and create that dispute and make it successful.”

In late September, Chaser finally got the phone call he had hoped for in late September. Wells Fargo agreed to credit the $1,900. Chaser says a representative shared that the bank’s decision came after contacting Capital One and learning Chaser’s name isn’t associated with the account linked to his bill pay.

In a statement to the On Your Side Investigators, Wells Fargo wrote:

“This was not a typical situation. While our review of this matter confirmed there was no error in our investigation, as a result of the unique circumstances of this situation, we are extending a refund to our customer as we continue to work through this matter together.” resolve