Bank Manager Helps Thwart $25K Con Of 80-Year-Old
A manager at Chemical Bank in Midland, Michigan, grew suspicious when he saw Marion Case, an 80-year-old customer, withdraw $25k from her account last December. Case told him she was going to mail it to someone who would then pass it along to her son. The manager, Carl Ahearn, "remained suspicious. He followed her as she walked to the nearby post office, where Case bought an Express Mail envelope addressed to a man in New Jersey. Ahearn shared his concerns with postal officials, who opened an investigation and arrested a man Monday for fraud."
Elan Saraf, 45, of Newark, N.J., a flight attendant with Continental Airlines, was arrested Monday and charged with mail fraud as he landed in New Jersey on an international flight. Two other current or former Continental flight attendants are identified as having been involved in the alleged fraud, but have not been accused of wrongdoing.
"The investigation is still ongoing and the case has the potential to be much larger," said Wylie Christopher, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Detroit.
"We're just grateful that citizens are willing to go above and beyond to make sure those who do things wrong pay for their actions."
"Midland banker's suspicion thwarts $25,000 scam of 80-year-old" [Detroit News] (Thanks to dguralnick!)
(Photo: frankieleon)
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OK, so there's one guy in this country who doesn't suck. +1 for USA!
Looks like Continental found yet another fee to charge. It's just a $25,000 disembarkation fee. The woman's son was on the plane and needed the cash to get off.
But did the bank fire him for interfering with a crime in progress?
What, a bank employee with actual investigative smarts?
How did this guy manage to get by the tests for allowing customers to deposit fake checks and immediately withdraw "extra money" to send back to the person who is supposed to be buying a lamp from their craigslist ad?
There are still some decent people in this world, and they even work in a bank! Who would of thunk it?
I grew up in Midland, MI and know this bank well... I remember getting candy from the drive through tellers and them always being really nice to me every year when I brought in my birthday check from my grandfather.
Okay, so he saved the 80 year-old part of his life's savings, and returned that $25K deposit to his bank. Double Win.
Great job by the bank manager, but I have to worry about that woman. She's already been scammed before, so I think this is one of those times when the kids should petition a judge to take control of her finances.
The first time was one of those "You've won $1 million! We just need some processing fees from you" scams, which I can understand why someone trusting might fall for that. This though, involved her mailing the money from Michigan to a man in New Jersey who will fly it to her son in Oklahoma. Even within the context of the scam, that makes absolutely no sense.
How about that, a bank that looks out for the interests of it's customers!
I'd really like to shake that guy's hand. Everyone wins in that situation...except for the poor guy in Jersey.
The thing is, if the customer was doing something that was perfectly safe and wasn't being scammed, you guys would have said that the manager was overstepping his bounds and being nosy. The headline would have been something like "Bank Manager Stalks Customer".
Chemical Bank is real??? I just thought it was a made up name used in Seinfeld episodes.... Like Acme was to rocketry.
unfortunately, as a result of this story, Marion Case is now on scammers alert as their Numero Uno target. lol
poor lady. Me thinks someone needs a power of attorney.
Holy Crap. That man is a hero.
@Homerjay here for OxyClean!: Acme is a real company name too. At least it is here. We have the Acme Brick, or something like that.
Wow...a bank employee that actually looks out for the customers! Take note everysinglefreakingbankinthiscountry. That bank manager is AWESOME. As in, fills one with awe. I'd love to have an account there.
Note that this was NOT one of the big national banks... I'm cynical enough to think this would never happen at BoA, Citi, etc.
@RecordStoreToughGuy: He would have been better off haunting that old amusement park to scare the Harlem Globetrotters away from the hidden Confederate Gold.
@bonzombiekitty: Do you pronounce the supermarkets as "Ack-a-mee"? Maybe that's just a Philly thing. It always bugged me. =p
@Homerjay here for OxyClean!: Yes, I think it's an offshoot from Dow Chemical which is headquartered in Midland.
When I was a teller at an S&L in the late 80s, I spared several customers from swindles. One of the more dramatic was when an older customer, whom I knew, came in and asked to take out $20k in cash from a CD that had come due.
Now, this branch was one in which hardly any customer ever walked out with more than a $500 cash withdrawal, so this raised many alarm bells. I asked her several times if she wouldn't prefer a bank check (there was no charge on them at the time, but even if there had been, I'd have waived it), but she said no, repeatedly. Without being too invasive I tried to weedle out of her why she wanted so much money in cash. She first said she was taking it to another bank, and I told her that the other bank ... whichever it was ... would be happy to accept a bank check from us.
When I realized she wasn't going to tell me what was going on, I told her flat-out that there was no good reason for her to walk around with that much cash. None. And that if anyone wanted her to do so, it couldn't be for any good purpose. I had no idea, at that moment, that I'd hit the nail on the head ... I'd just been trying to convince her not to walk around with all that cash.
Eventually she admitted what was going on ... there was, it seems, a bank examiner waiting outside for her to bring the cash. Apparently they wanted to check to see if we would actually give her the full $20k. The reason she was being secretive was — she said — because this was a "test" and if she told us what was going on, it wouldn't work.
Needless to say, we called the police, because this was the "bank examiner scam" at work. By the time we looked outside the guy had gone, only moments before we went looking for him ... but we did have footage of him on security-camera tape. He had kept his head turned away from it at all times, but the cops were able to identify him anyway, and he was arrested a couple days later. (It's possible he did the same at other banks so the police had already built a "profile" on him.)
We found out later that he'd picked this customer's CD renewal-notice letter, that our S&L had sent her, out of her mail. Then, armed knowledge that she had a large CD with us that was renewing, he'd asked her to "help out" with this little "test."
There were other occasions when we protected our customers ... such as the time a young man who'd stolen someone's passbook came in to withdraw from it; we strung him along for about 10 minutes until the police could arrive and arrest him. And the time we prevented a son from scamming his way into his elderly father's safe-deposit box, also stalling him long enough for the cops to arrive.
Not to mention many others.
I say this not to brag, but to explain that, at many places, this is just what the employees do every day. And yes, I expect that this happens at big institutions and small ones alike. The S&L I once worked for was acquired by a large commercial bank, and after a couple more mergers, is now part of BoA. A few of my co-workers stayed behind and are now working for BoA. I have no doubt they've continued to do exactly the same for all their customers.
@thegirls: There are actually two chemical banks... one in New York that got bought out by Chase and then the Midland one which is, in all likelihood, connected to Dow.
@dangerp: Agreed! I think growing up with a place like Chemical Bank and then small friendly credit unions gave me my distaste for large organizations.
@undefined: @Homerjay here for OxyClean!: @thegirls: But the Seinfeld Chemical Bank was a different bank...and was acquired by Chase in 1996
@GearheadGeek: Hey numnuts, why would he get fired? What a moronic statement. If the authorities were not aware of the crime itself, the bank employee was not interferring ( your sufficient & necessary is backwards). And as citizens, he (we) have a duty within a reasonable time and standard to get involved without putting himself (ourselves) or others in a dangerous situation.
@intellivised: I know Midland quite well myself. Whenever I think of the Chemical Bank, I think of the one in Edmore, MI. You probably know where that is. LOL.
@PsiCop: Nice job there. Have a beer on me the next time you are in my town. Which I wont reveal over the internet.
@LeChiffre: Are you high or just completely unable to sense sarcasm?
Ever heard those stories of 7-11 cashiers / Walmart Greeters fired for fighting back when getting robbed? Clearly this post is a nod to those types of stories.
Maybe you should relax a little before name calling.
Lastly, as citizens, we have no legal duty to offer any kind of assistance. Period. For any reason. Not saying that's a good plan, but you're factually wrong there, too.
@LeChiffre: Ah, yes... ample evidence of your stupidity along with your complete lack of a sense of humor. If you've been reading these pages for long, you'd have seen several articles in the past where companies have fired their employees for stopping thieves and shoplifters. I was making a joke that apparently shot far over your head. It may be that one of us is moronic, but I don't believe I'm the one.
Sounds like I might have actually found a trustworthy bank, or at least one that hires trustworthy people.
And he'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling bank manager.