Odaily Planet Daily reports: In New York, 80-year-old George Chryssanthou was defrauded of nearly $285,000 and has filed an arbitration claim against Charles Schwab with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
On January 17, 2025, scammers impersonating "Microsoft Technical Support" called Chryssanthou, remotely accessed their computer under the pretense of fixing software issues, and claimed their account had been hacked. The scammers then tricked the victim into providing verification codes, and over several days, transferred funds in installments via wire transfer to a Cross River Bank account in New Jersey named "Coinbase Inc.," with individual amounts ranging from $18,000 to $90,000, totaling $284,650, which was immediately converted into cryptocurrency and moved. The victim only discovered their account balance had been depleted when logging in on January 29. After FBI involvement, the victim was informed that the likelihood of recovering the funds is extremely low.
In September 2025, Chryssanthou engaged attorney Adam Gana to file a claim with FINRA, alleging that Charles Schwab failed to fulfill its supervisory duties by not verifying or blocking unusually frequent wire transfers and suspicious recipient accounts. (Business Insider)