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Banker Thwarts $15,000 Scam Thanks to AARP Training
AARP’s BankSafe program teaches financial institution employees how to identify red flags and stop fraud in its tracks
India Pitts, a bank branch manager in Columbus, Ohio, used her AARP BankSafe training to prevent an older customer from being scammed.
Maddie McGarvey
Key takeaways
- A bank manager used AARP’s BankSafe training to spot red flags and stop a customer from losing $15,000 in a scam.
- BankSafe teaches frontline employees to slow situations down, ask key questions and recognize signs of financial exploitation.
- A study found BankSafe-trained employees helped save customers 12 times more money from financial exploitation per participant than the control group did.
The 60-something woman who entered a Fifth Third bank branch in June was visibly shaken.
She urgently wanted to withdraw $15,000 to purchase a boat for her husband. It had to be cash — the cashier’s check or wire transfer the bank teller offered as alternatives wouldn’t do. Her demeanor raised enough red flags that India Pitts, manager of the branch, ushered her into a private office and gently probed for details, where more warning signs emerged. The woman couldn’t give more details about the boat purchase when Pitts asked and had left her cellphone in her car. After 20 minutes of conversation, the real story started spilling out.
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Pitts, 34, and her colleagues at this Columbus, Ohio, branch recognized that the woman might be the victim of a scam right away, thanks to AARP’s BankSafe training, which they had taken earlier this year. AARP launched this free program for frontline employees of financial institutions in 2019 to teach them how to identify and prevent financial exploitation.
Older victims of financial exploitation lose about $28.3 billion annually, according to a 2023 report from AARP’s Public Policy Institute.
“When someone goes through this, they can lose part of their security for retirement,” says Jilenne Gunther, national director of AARP’s BankSafe Initiative. “They are also more likely to experience anxiety and depression, cardiovascular problems and even thoughts of suicide.”
Pitts drew on her BankSafe training to ask questions that she hoped would raise alarm bells for the older woman being scammed.
Maddie McGarvey
Pitts knew she had to slow the situation down so she could give the woman time to think. The woman explained that someone purporting to be a county sheriff had called to tell her that a bench warrant had been issued for her arrest for failing to appear for jury duty. A so-called law enforcement captain and judge jumped on the line as well. They told her the only way to avoid arrest was to pay a bond, which involved feeding $15,000 into a cryptocurrency kiosk at a local big-box store.
Ultimately, Pitts helped the customer recognize that this was a scam, and she didn’t lose a penny. The BankSafe training taught Pitts to pay attention to changes in a customer’s usual behavior and use them as an opportunity to ask questions. It also helped Pitts figure out next steps, such as creating a safe space for the victim to process what was happening.
“I knew, based on the BankSafe training, that this was a first for the customer,” she says. “You have to meet the customer where they are.”
The confidence to save customers from scams
The BankSafe program was created after an AARP survey found that one of the top things consumers wanted from their financial institutions was for employees to be thoroughly trained to prevent financial exploitation.
The online training is peppered with videos of real-life situations that financial institutions shared. Participants assume the role of a bank teller and follow the story of an older adult targeted by fraudsters. As participants identify red flags and answer questions about how they would handle various situations, they also see how much money they could help save for the customer.
“We focus on what you can do in that moment,” Gunther says. “We concentrate on not just the knowledge but the confidence to intervene.”
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- Tell lawmakers to stop criminals from using crypto kiosks to steal from us.
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When AARP piloted the program in 2018 with nearly 500 branches and 1,816 employees from 82 financial institutions, the Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology compared employees who had taken the training to a control group that hadn’t. The study found that in the six months following training, the BankSafe-trained group saved customers 12 times more money from financial exploitation per participant than the control group did, regardless of previous training experience. Employees who received BankSafe training were also more likely to proactively ask questions when they spotted red flags and reported an increase in confidence in recognizing, preventing and reporting cases of exploitation that was four times greater than those in the control group.
Although the training was designed for customer-facing employees of banks and credit unions, other industries soon approached AARP to develop versions tailored to their needs, including financial advisers and broker-dealers, retailers who sell gift cards and peer-to-peer payment companies. Some institutions have every employee take the training, including the board.
The most valuable feature for Pitts was watching the videos of real-life scenarios that showed her what these interactions could look and feel like. It was more effective than reading a block of text.
“We can all take multiple-choice tests and do our best to retain that information, but I am a visual learner,” Pitts says.
Your word against the scammers
Whether she is dealing with potential fraud or doling out financial advice, Pitts knows she needs to listen to and be compassionate toward customers in the moment.
In this case, she knew it was her word against the so-called local law enforcement officers who had convinced the woman to withdraw $15,000. One relatable video from the BankSafe training showed a customer who refused to believe they were a victim of fraud.
“The banker didn’t necessarily agree with the customer but allowed the customer to vocalize what they were feeling,” Pitts says.
Pitts asked her customer questions that she hoped would raise alarm bells, such as why the police would want her to deposit cash in a kiosk. She connected the woman with Fifth Third’s fraud department and with local police to reinforce the message that she was being targeted by impostors. Pitts also requested that the woman retrieve her cellphone from her car — where the fraudster had been waiting on hold for 40 minutes.
“That’s when it clicked that something was abnormal,” she says. “Why would local law enforcement still be on the call?”
Once the woman understood that the callers were impersonators, the bank took some precautions. “In the training, one of the important questions is, What information have you shared with the fraudster?” Pitts says. Some victims may hand over their account numbers, Social Security numbers or addresses while flustered. Because the woman couldn’t remember what, if any, information she had shared, the bank opened new accounts for her and set up alerts.
The mental grip the callers had on the woman was still hard to shake, though.
“She was 99.9 percent sure that was a scam after our conversation,” Pitts says. It took a visit to the local police station, where officers confirmed there was no warrant out for her arrest and they would never ask her to deposit money at a retailer, for the truth to finally become clear.
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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