Couple left with £41,000 overdraft after having account drained by hacker — but bank blamed them

A couple was left devastated when hackers took all of their savings and sent them into an overdraft of $53,000 after hijacking their checking account.

After reaching out to their bank Drea and Adam Richardson from Taylorsville, south of Salt Lake City, Utah, claim that their bank placed the blame on them for the loss.

“We noticed that there were some charges on our bank account,” Drea explained to local NBC affiliate KSL-TV following the shock. This was the first warning sign that something had gone wrong with the checking account she shared with her husband, but little did they know things were going to get much worse.

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Strangely, an unknown person had transferred $5,000 (£3,900) into the account and then withdrew it again, leaving little trace. “They did that daily for a period of days,” Adam said.

He called USAA, their bank, to alert them to the suspicious activity but it continued with the back-and-forth amount of $5,000 with no action seemingly taken to prevent the hackers. Suddenly, the incoming money stopped as the hacker gradually drained the account.

“Just straight withdrawals one after the other,” Drea explained. Adam added: “Didn’t even see it happening until they had stopped transactions on my checking account.”

A total of $60,000 (£47,000) had been removed, when they only had $7,000 (£5,500) in there in the first place, plunging them into a $53,000 (£41,000) overdraft.

Despite this stress, the couple didn’t panic as they believed that under federal rules they would be protected by the bank and this was confirmed with their first phone call with USAA, a bank that claims to have ‘pioneered’ digital banking technology.

“They said, ‘Okay, we’ve looked at it, it’s clearly not you. We’ve gone ahead and taken care of it. Your funds are safe,'” Drea explained. However, the couple was later informed by USAA that it was their fault as the transactions had been authorised.

The couple claims their contact information had been changed so they didn’t see any emails, texts or other notifications. “They said, ‘Nope there’s no fraudulent activity, this was all done through your profile and because it was done through your personal profile, you’re are responsible for this,'” Drea said.

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The Richardsons were shocked when they received a letter about their overdraft saying that the bank would be “pursuing with collections.” USAA abruptly closed all of their bank accounts, leaving the couple desperate for help, so they turned to the press. They spoke to KSL-TV and the outlet’s investigators contacted the bank to ask why the couple were not protected.

According to federal law in the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, banks are obligated to restore funds lost in unauthorised transactions, which the Richardsons believed this was.

“USAA is committed to protecting its members from fraud and resolving issues when they occur,” the bank told the outlet in an email. “We investigate each incident so that we can best serve impacted members while also protecting our broader membership from any bad actors.”

Following KSL-TV’s intervention, the Richardsons were credited with the fraudulent transactions and the bank has agreed to restore the money to their accounts.