New York State’s attorney general sued Citi on Tuesday, accusing it of failing to stop scammers from stealing an unspecified amount of money from customer accounts, and saying the bank should reimburse fraud victims for any losses.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court, laid out a variety of ways in which Citi clients had been fooled into disclosing sensitive information that let hackers gain access to their accounts and steal millions of dollars.
In what are known as phishing scams, some of the cases involved Citi’s customers receiving text messages or emails that purported to be from Citi but were really from criminals.
The New York attorney general, Letitia James, said that Citi should have been suspicious when large transfers were requested from customer accounts that had not had such activities for decades — and that only minutes before had their passwords changed.
Citi later denied her request to be reimbursed, saying it was her fault for clicking on the scammer’s message.
Persons:
Letitia James
Organizations:
Citi, New
Locations:
York, New York