Some major U.S. banks have not been reimbursing account takeover attack victims, as discovered in a report on the Zelle Fraud Scam investigation headed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., according to KrebsOnSecurity.
U.S. Bank, PNC, and Truist, three of the banks that formed Zelle parent firm Early Warning Services LLC, were noted to have 35,848 scam cases between 2021 and the first half of 2022, resulting in more than $25.9 million in payments. "In the vast majority of these cases, the banks did not repay the customers that reported being scammed. Overall these three banks reported repaying customers in only 3,473 cases (representing nearly 10% of scam claims) and repaid only $2.9 million," said the report. Reimbursement of stolen funds nearly 10% of the time has surprised Aite-Novarica Strategic Advisor Trace Fooshee. "Thats money that theyre paying for out of pocket almost entirely for goodwill. You could argue that repaying all victims is a sound strategy especially in the climate were in but to say that it should be what all banks do remains an opinion until Congress changes the law," Fooshee added.
