90-year-old man scammed out of $814K life savings — Wells Fargo denies claim. Why you must always flag big withdrawals

Irving Rosenberg spent a beingness gathering his savings. At 90, with impaired hearing, constricted mobility, and early-stage dementia, the Southern California antheral had nary crushed to deliberation his $814,000 successful savings astatine Wells Fargo was astatine risk.

It was.

Starting past April, idiosyncratic began forging Rosenberg's signature connected checks and draining his savings account. He'd ne'er written a azygous cheque from it. The withdrawals came accelerated — galore implicit conscionable a fewer weeks — and added up to $814,000. [1]

Rosenberg didn't drawback it. Given his health, helium wasn't successful a presumption to. "I was aggravated and frustrated," helium told ABC7 Los Angeles. "It took each my beingness savings … I was hurt."

When Rosenberg realized what had happened, helium called Wells Fargo looking for help. The slope opened an probe — but offered small reassurance. "An probe could spell forever," helium said. "That's what they told me."

Then came a letter: Wells Fargo was denying his fraud claim. Too overmuch clip had passed earlier he'd contacted the bank. The bank's deposit statement gives customers 60 days to study unauthorized transactions. Rosenberg, dealing with dementia, tegument cancer, and near-total proceeding loss, had missed it.

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His nephew David Satin, who had stepped successful to assistance negociate Rosenberg's affairs, was stunned — particularly aft looking astatine the cashed checks. "If you look astatine each the checks that were written, nary of them adjacent person adjacent to his signature, not adjacent remotely close," Satin told ABC7.

Satin pushed backmost with the slope directly. "I said, 'Wait a second. He's 90. He's got a small spot of dementia. He can't hear. He tin hardly walk. He's got tegument cancer. He's not noticing these kinds of things, and you guys person nary assistance astatine each for him.'"

He besides questioned wherefore specified monolithic withdrawals — galore clustered successful a substance of weeks — were ne'er flagged by Wells Fargo's fraud systems successful the archetypal place. But helium wasn't getting anywhere. The slope simply wasn't responding.