A woman has come forward to share how she and her husband were scammed out of their entire life savings to help others avoid making the same mistake.
Amelia Mandeville-Marinaro, 28, was on maternity leave when her husband, Pete, sent her an urgent text message that their bank account had been hacked.
Pete told his wife he was on the phone with the bank, but she needed to give him the banking details and approve a payment to move funds to another account, where it would be ‘safe.’
‘Alarm bells started ringing in my head,’ Mandeville-Marinaro said.
‘Anyway, stupidly, I approved the payment,’ she added.
Holding back tears while sharing the story in a TikTok video, Mandeville-Marinaro said Pete followed the steps from the caller who ‘seemed to know the details about our account, how much was in our savings.’
However, she admitted that the call came from an unknown number and that should have tipped them both off immediately.
Mandeville-Marinaro said the bank is looking into the issue, and is hoping to get their money back as they just welcomed a baby girl a few months before.
Amelia Mandeville-Marinaro, 28, was on maternity leave when her husband, Pete, sent her an urgent text message that their bank account had been hacked
‘Today, we were scammed which meant that we’ve lost our savings which is, you know, scary because I’m on maternity leave but I wanted to do this video so that other people learn from our mistakes,’ Mandeville-Marinaro share in a recent TikTok video.
‘I know people are going to be like, ‘why are you so stupid, it’s obvious it’s a scam’ but I think sometimes, in the moments, you don’t realize it.’
After sharing the story, Mandeville-Marinaro told viewers that their bank will never call them and ask them to move funds to a different account.
She also highlighted that many banking apps include a call log, allowing users to see the last time they were contacted by the bank.
‘Had we known that at the time, we could have seen that our bank was not calling,’Â Mandeville-Marinaro said.Â
The new mom is just one of millions of people who fall victim to bank scams each year.Â
Bank scams have skyrocketed in recent years, with a new report showing one in three US adults (34 percent) have experienced financial fraud or a scam since January 2024, Bankrate, a consumer financial services based in New York City.
The firm’s Financial Fraud Survey, published March 5, shows that nearly two in five Americans (37 percent) lost money to such scams in the last year.
The new mom is just one of millions of people who fall victim to bank scams each year. Bank scams have skyrocketed in recent years, with a new report showing one in three US adults (34 percent) have experienced financial fraud or a scam since January 2024
Sarah Foster, Bankrate economic analyst, said: ‘Financial scams today come in all shapes and sizes, advancing far beyond the typo-ridden text messages that so obviously look to be from a scammer.’
The survey found 37 percent of Americans who experienced financial fraud or a scam in the past 12 months said they lost money, including those who say someone took their funds after accessing their personal or financial information (19 percent) and those who sent funds to a scammer or paid for a phony service (23 percent).
‘If you suspect that someone has used your information falsely or that you’ve paid for a phony service, don’t panic,’ Foster advised.
‘The best steps toward reversing any monetary damage are having all parties aligned on the same goal and using every resource available to you.’