Apparently, every happy event must be matched with a not-so-happy event.
Well, my business accounts at Chase got hacked at around 5:30 last night and they had a lot of money taken out via ACH and no one at Chase is telling me how it happened. Good thing I happened to check the account as In was finishing work at 6 and saw it - aside from the heart attack from seeing it that is.
Apparently it was not a password breach as my password and even the username for the business have been changed before this occurred, shared with no one, I do regular weekly anti-virus and malware scans are done on my computer, I don't go to strange sites on this computer, and they're not saying there was any suspicious sign-ons at all, so it's likely they got in some other way - but Chase is not saying.
The scumbags somehow managed to do online transfers to take money out of my account and send it to Discover and to Voyager (apparently some kind of crypto-currency thing) incredibly quickly and without so much as a by your leave.
Chase security last night was decidedly unhelpful. It appears their call center is off-shore and while they were a bit hard to understand and times it seemed they didn't understand much either. You would think the security division would be a bit more competent. Over three hours on the phone and I ended up feeling worse rather than better and now believe the bank's security for its customers from such acts is somewhere from inadequate to non-existent.
The person on the phone stated that if someone has the routing number and account number they can wire money out of the account no problem. Since that information is on every check that's rather worrisome and there better be better safeguards. The criminal made to minor deposits of a few cents each and then immediately pulled out a lot of money from the account in two big pulls which is rather bad as that's got me in a bad spot.
The person on the phone then stated it was ok and she would do the dispute claims contesting it for me but I should go into a branch to change the account numbers when they open this morning.
Welp, wouldn't you know the person on the phone did not actually do a dispute claim for the monies that were taken out. Oh, no - she did it only for the two tiny deposits put into the account! Both I and the Branch Manager looked at each other in disbelief when we found that out.
So I'm rather hosed as it will be at least 15 days to process the claim and return the money at the earliest. My account numbers , and username and password have all been changed so I have no checks to pay the bills that are coming up and need to order new ones and it's a rather problematic mess having to change all sorts of things including everything that is linked to those accounts.
7 comments:
2 different accounts at 2 different banks.
don't put all your eggs in one basket.
sounds cold but it's the way things are going.
Oh, THAT sucks!
Two accounts at the same bank with very different account numbers. Yes, if you have the routing and account numbers, anyone can draw on the account. Trick is to have a second account that no one has the number for, well, except you and the bank. Only transfer as much money as you need into your checking account.
Michigan Doug: Yep none of the personal accounts are at Chase so the damage while severe is at least limited.
Old NFO: Yep, it truly is. Taken hours of time so far to work on, and it just really screwed up my business pretty badly.
Chuck Pergiel: The bat rastards got into two different business accounts - both of which are checking for different purposes. I think per your suggestion a third account there may be in order. Thanks for the idea.
That is pretty much what I do...I have two accounts at different banks. I ONLY transfer from the first into the second, from which I pay all my bills ad write checks.
Much of my bill paying is done via Credit Card, so that eliminates even those checks. Most Credit Card companies can have new plastic to you in one or two working days.
Some banks will allow you to limit where the money from one account can be transferred...like only to your second (working) account.
Email me for details if you want.
Hopefully they didn't hit your attorney's trust account. Things get really messy if that happens and then checks bounce.
B: Yep, email will be sent shortly to discuss.
Comrade Misfit: No checks bouncing, but yep it got hit too and Chase should darn well have the money back within 15 days. Chase states the IOLTA account is not eligible to prevent any ACH access even though they have that service for other kinds of accounts and I never ever use ACH for the IOLTA account - ever. Chase actually has the ability to block this kind of theft from happening but they refuse to implement it as an IOLTA account doesn't qualify for that level of protection. WTF. Looking into switching banks as a result as this is nuts.
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