The Case at a Glance
Our firm recently filed an amended complaint on behalf of a retired senior citizen who lost substantial funds after falling victim to a sophisticated tech support scam. The lawsuit alleges that First National Bank of Pennsylvania (FNB) failed to exercise ordinary care in protecting our client from elder financial exploitation, despite numerous red flags that should have alerted bank personnel to the fraud in progress.
How the Scam Unfolded
Our client, a longstanding FNB customer, encountered what appeared to be a routine security alert while using her home computer in mid-2024. A pop-up notification warned of a security risk and urged her to contact Microsoft immediately. The notification included a phone number, which she called. What followed was a carefully orchestrated fraud. Through a series of communications, scammers convinced our client that she had been victimized by identity theft and needed to take immediate action to protect her accounts. The perpetrators went so far as to connect her with someone posing as an FNB Fraud Department employee. This fake bank employee instructed our client to wire her funds to a California company that would purportedly purchase gold bars for safekeeping on her behalf. Trusting these instructions, our client visited FNB’s Hermitage Square branch on two separate occasions to request wire transfers. The funds were subsequently lost when the gold bars were released to the fraudsters using what appeared to be authorization from our client. The scammers also persuaded our client to make multiple cash withdrawals from her account, which she turned over to them under the belief that her money would be held securely. Most of these withdrawals took place during in-person visits to FNB’s Hermitage branch, where our client interacted directly with bank tellers.
The Bank’s Alleged Failures
Our client’s amended complaint asserts that FNB breached its contractual duty to exercise ordinary care. The bank’s account agreement explicitly states that FNB is responsible for exercising such care in connection with the account, and we contend that the bank failed to meet this obligation.
Specifically, we allege that FNB failed to:
- Detect warning signs that our client was a victim of elder financial exploitation;
- Make meaningful inquiries before processing unusual wire transfers and cash withdrawals;
- Act on readily apparent red flags that indicated potential fraud; and
- Take reasonable protective measures despite having knowledge of common elder exploitation schemes.
Banks’ Awareness of Elder Financial Exploitation
Financial institutions have been repeatedly warned about the prevalence of elder financial exploitation and have been provided with abundant guidance about how to recognize and prevent it. Over the past decade, numerous governmental agencies and banking industry organizations have issued comprehensive reports detailing the tactics used by fraudsters and the red flags that may indicate exploitation is occurring.
Those reports include the following, which we cite in our client’s amended complaint:
- The Interagency Statement on Elder Financial Exploitation, issued by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, CFPB, FDIC, FinCEN and others (Dec. 4, 2024);
- Elder Financial Exploitation: Threat Pattern & Trend Information, June 2022 to June 2023, issued by FinCEN (April 18, 2024);
- FinCEN Press Release announcing publication of Elder Financial Exploitation: Threat Pattern & Trend Information, June 2022 to June 2023, issued by FinCEN (April 18, 2024);
- 2024 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment, issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Feb. 7, 2024);
- Advisory on Elder Financial Exploitation, issued by FinCEN (June 15, 2022);
- Suspicious Activity Reports on Elder Financial Exploitation, issued by CFPB (Nov. 15, 2021);
- Older Americans Benchmarking Report: Findings from a Survey of Banks, issued by American Bankers Association Community Engagement Foundation (Nov. 2, 2021);
- Suspicious Activity Reports on Elder Financial Exploitation: Issues and Trends, issued by CFPB (Feb. 2019); and
- Recommendations and Report for Financial Institutions on Preventing and Responding to Elder Financial Exploitation, issued by CFPB (March 2016).
These reports demonstrate that banks like FNB have long been aware of tech support scams and similar exploitation schemes targeting elderly customers. The guidance provided in these reports identifies specific red flags and recommends protective measures that financial institutions should implement. We allege that certain red flags described in these industry reports were present when our client conducted her transactions at FNB’s Hermitage Square branch, yet the bank failed to recognize or appropriately respond to these warning signs.
The Bank’s Response and Next Steps
FNB has responded to the Amended Complaint by requesting that the Court refer the case to arbitration, based on arbitration provisions included in its account agreement. Michael J. Betts LLC will argue on behalf of our client that the case should remain in court because, among other reasons, FNB has waived its right to invoke the arbitration provisions on which it is relying.
This is the Amended Complaint recently filed by Michael J. Betts LLC in Anderson v. First National Bank of Pennsylvania. The case is pending in the Court of Common Pleas of Mercer County, Pennsylvania.