Banks failed to stop financial scam on dying man

A Washington state woman is suing Navy Federal Credit Union and Wells Fargo to restore the legacy and estate of her late uncle, whom scam artists had tricked into transferring more than $3.6 million to the Bangkok Bank.

Janine Satterfield, the niece of the late Larry Cook of Fairfax County, Virginia, said the banks were negligent in allowing her uncle to initiate wire transfers 74 times from his accounts — even after one of the banks’ officials flagged Cook for review by Adult Protective Services.

Cook died in 2021 at age 76. In July 2019, he suffered a stroke that disabled him and left him impaired.

He had an estate worth nearly $10 million and had started managing his late mother’s nearly $2 million estate.

After his stroke, Cook stopped responding to inquiries about his mother’s estate. He isolated himself and stopped filing income taxes.

Ms. Satterfield’s lawsuit says Cook was conservative and diligent with finances before his health declined in 2019. In October 2020, Cook received what his family believes to have been a scam email that appeared to be from Amazon and prompted him to transfer funds.

For the subsequent six months until his death in April 2021, Cook continued to transfer money overseas. Nearly all payments were in the amount of $49,500 and labeled as loan repayment.

Around December 2020, a couple of months after the initial scam email, a Navy Federal Credit Union representative alerted Fairfax County Adult Protective Services to potential elder financial exploitation.

The lawsuit says the alert shows that the bank was notified about Cook’s inconsistent financial conduct.

“Given his medical status, his social isolation and enfeebled state, Mr. Cook was without capacity to manage his finances, and he was susceptible to financial exploitation and needed the protection of a conservator,” says the lawsuit, filed in January in the Eastern District of Virginia.

“Prior to this report, it appears that NFCU never questioned, reported, or even attempted to stop any of Mr. Cook’s international wires and instead, even after the APS Report was made, continued to process at least another forty-two (42) wires. The tortious conduct by NFCU was continuous over the incredibly brief period of time, ceasing only because of Mr. Cook’s death.”

The lawsuit seeks to have the banks repay the amount transferred and added costs.

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo provided a statement: “We cannot comment on pending litigation. Wells Fargo takes financial exploitation very seriously. We are committed to helping our customers avoid fraud and scams through various resources, including ongoing education efforts.”

A Navy Federal Credit Union spokesperson said customers are their top priority.

“Our members are always our first priority and we handle all member transactions with great care. Because this particular matter is currently pending in litigation, out of respect for the jurisdiction of the court, we will have no further comment,” the NFCU spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Bangkok Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Satterfield said defending her uncle’s estate has been emotional and that reform is needed for banks to better protect against such fraud.

“For me, it’s been my life to defend him,” she told The Washington Times. “He had no record of wiring money in our assessment ever, so an international wire with my bank brokerage background is highly unusual, and it should have been flagged immediately and at least delayed. Not one should have gone out.

“It has been a daily event in almost solving a mystery, in defending his honor, in reclaiming what was wired out, which should, in my opinion, never have happened,” she said.

Lawsuits against banks over third-party scams are relatively new, said Satterfield attorney Kimberley Ann Murphy. She said some lawsuits have persuaded banks to go to mediation.

“We are finding that they are popping up more. I think this scam is relatively new … and they are all going to the same place. I think it is the Bank of Bangkok,” said Ms. Murphy, adding that her legal research has found several incidents. “Every single one of the victims involved were elderly, and they were all sending wires in approximately the amount of $49,500.”

According to Justice Department statistics, roughly 592,990 people older than 65 experienced financial fraud in 2017.

A 2022 report on elder fraud from the FBI found increasing occurrences.

“In 2022, total losses reported to the [Internet Crime Complaint Center] by elderly victims increased 84% from 2021,” the report states.

Technical and customer support scams were the most common types reported. People older than 60 filed more than 17,000 complaints with the FBI.

Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention programming for AARP, said fraud has become unrecognizable because scammers are using personal information and even phone numbers associated with banks.

She said reporting is undercounted because some victims are embarrassed to come forward. According to Federal Trade Commission data from 2022, the losses from fraud totaled about $9 billion, Ms. Stokes said.

“The scammers are really good about getting us into a mindset where we can’t access logical thinking,” she said.

Her advice is for family members to talk with older relatives about online scams and to watch for signs of fraud to prevent loved ones from becoming victims.

“There was a study done a couple years ago … that if you know about a specific scam, you’re 80% less likely to engage with it. That’s a big number, so we need to be talking more about it,” Ms. Stokes said.