A bank impersonation scam has stolen more than $2 million nationwide and has been described as a “tsunami of fraud” hitting consumers across the country.
CBS 8 reported on a bank impersonation scam linked to more than $2 million in nationwide losses, describing it as a “tsunami of fraud.”
How These Scams Typically Operate
While the specifics of each San Diego County case have not been detailed, the broader playbook for bank impersonation scams is well documented. According to the Federal Trade Commission, scammers posing as bank representatives or companies often persuade victims to transfer their money to “keep it safe” or for some other invented reason, draining accounts before the victim realizes what has happened.
A separate federal case out of San Diego illustrates how convincing — and costly — these schemes can be. The Justice Department announced that Florida resident Albert Guerra pleaded guilty to bank fraud and money laundering charges after admitting he traveled the country impersonating bank employees to defraud victims, many of them elderly.
In Guerra's scheme, prosecutors said he persuaded victims to withdraw cash and hand it over to people posing as bank employees who were, in reality, ride-share drivers he had recruited, according to 10News. The outlet reported that three San Diego County victims, ages 22 to 28, lost an estimated $136,300 over the course of a single week. Guerra was ultimately sentenced in San Diego federal court to three years in prison.
A National Surge in Losses Among Older Adults
The San Diego County case count fits into a much larger national trend of rising fraud losses among seniors. The FTC received 8,269 reports in 2024 from adults age 60 and older who said they lost at least $10,000 to an imposter scam, up 362% from just 1,790 reports in 2020, CNBC reported citing the commission's data. Total reported losses among older Americans reached $700 million in 2024, more than five times the $122 million reported in 2020.
The FTC has said that while younger people also report losing money to imposters, reports of losses in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars are far more likely to come from older adults.
The scale of the problem, both locally and nationally, has prompted investigators and regulators alike to describe bank impersonation fraud as a fast-growing threat to older Americans' savings.
