Citibank Refuses To Refund Woman's Life Savings Of $26,000 That Was Stolen When Her Account Was Hacked

It's the kind of nightmare most will only read about… Over a month ago a woman's phone was hacked. While she handled the issue with T.Mobile quickly, her bank info ended up being compromised and a hacker was able to get into her Citibank account to assign a new payee.

Within minutes, her entire life savings was emptied out.

I bank with Chase, and this blows my mind. Have you ever received a fraud alert? Frankly. they're super annoying. I've probably had something happen every 3–4 years…it usually gets resolved in a few hours. But as annoying as that kind of thing can be, I have absolutely no fear of Chase failing to refund the money in the event that something goes wrong.

This is why you keep your money in a bank… because it's supposed to be safe!

I came across this story on a friend's facebook page and I had to know more, so I reached out directly.

When Jackie Berman realized what had happened, she immediately contacted her bank as well as the local police, but no action has been taken to investigate the case or refund her money. In fact, Citibank has yet to make any sort of effort to contact Berman outside of a generic form letter rejecting her claim.

When she finally heard back, an entire month after making her claim, Citibank's fraud department offered this response:

"You did not take adequate steps to safeguard your account. This failure compromised the security of your account information and directly contributed to allowing the transactions in question to take place."

Now Berman is looking to speak to an actual representative, but for some reason Citibank has her waiting on the line. In spite of several attempts to communicate with Citibank's fraud department, she has come up empty.

Berman and her family also believe it was Citibank's own failure to follow their own safeguards and procedures that resulted in this theft.

On the day of the theft, Berman received a notification from Citibank at 3:18 pm with the typical fraud alert, letting her know her account might be compromised and asking her to contact them. At 3:41, a Citibank employee left a voicemail on her account stating that their might be fraud.

But at 3:35pm, six minutes before that voicemail, Citibank allowed Berman's bank account to be emptied… in spite of admitting and documenting that they caught fraudulent activity.

With no action or accountability being taken by Citibank, Berman and many family and friends have taken to the internet in an effort to get this story to the public. They've been posted on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in an attempt to garner attention. Berman's father has been reaching out to every news source he can think of, but most replies seem to be offering logical advice like make a police report and contact the bank.

Marc Berman, Via TwitterAnd why haven't they tried going down to Citibank in person? Oh, they have.

Jennifer Wilson, the manager at their local Citibank Branch initially said "Not sure what I can do."

Look, I'm not sure what she can do either, but I'd sure hope she could help get them in touch with someone who can handle their case.

According to Citibank's website, they offer step-by-step personalized assistance with fraud support, but maybe some of their locations have not gotten that memo? Unfortunately, Berman is not the only dissatisfied customer.

Citibank has been in the news for failure to keep track of money entrusted to them on many occasions. The large bank seems to have many similar problems in the past, including one that made it to the NY Post.

Berman's life savings was emptied over a month ago and she continues to try to get her case resolved.