Debra Case lost more than $2 million to cybercriminals who persuaded the former Hollywood commissioner and her husband to liquidate nearly all their assets and transfer them into Bitcoin — only to have them stolen, a lawsuit claims.
Case filed a complaint with the FBI and the Hollywood Police Department, then turned to attorney Larry Davis for help.
“Debra and Terrence Case were victimized due to the negligence of financial institutions who owe a duty to protect their clients from fraudsters,” Davis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel this week. “As a result of this negligence, our clients lost over $2 million that had been earned from a lifetime of hard, honest work.”
The lawsuit, filed on May 7 in Broward Circuit Court, names four defendants: Bank of America, headquartered in North Carolina; Regions Bank, headquartered in Alabama; UBS Financial Services, headquartered in New Jersey; and Fisher Investments, headquartered in Texas.
The lawsuit claims that all four institutions were in breach of duty by failing to prevent fraud.
None of the defendants have yet responded formally to the lawsuit, court records showed.
The Sun Sentinel reached out to representatives for all four.
Bank of America and UBS Financial Services declined to comment.
Naj Srinivas, executive vice president of Fisher Investments, sent this response: “This claim is without merit and we look forward to defending ourselves in the appropriate venue.”
Regions Bank made this statement: “While we will not comment on pending litigation, we can confirm Regions Bank has a strong commitment to fraud prevention, including raising awareness of common scams like gift card scams. We also caution against imposter scams, where fraudsters pose as legitimate professionals and try to convince people to move money around. In addition, we participate in the #BanksNeverAskThat campaign, informing people of the types of information a legitimate bank, including Regions, will never request.”
Case, a former Hollywood restaurant owner and former city commissioner who is now retired, isn’t the first to be taken in by a cyberscam and unfortunately, won’t be the last.
“The financial devastation caused by the pervasive and widespread scamming of our most vulnerable Americans is a national disgrace,” Davis said.
A long and winding ruse
Here’s what happened, according to the lawsuit:
Case, 67, got an email from someone claiming to be a Microsoft employee. The email claimed her computer was compromised and provided a phone number to call for more information.
Case called the number.
A woman claiming to be a Microsoft employee named Amy Flores gave her yet another number to call.
Case called that number and spoke to a man who falsely claimed to be a Bank of America employee named Ryan Connor. Unbeknownst to her, he provided her with a fake employee ID number and fake case number.
Connor told Case the IP addresses on her and her husband’s computer and phones were compromised and that their electronic and financial accounts were at risk. He assured Case he would take care of the financial accounts and that Flores would take care of the electronic devices.
After gaining remote access to the couple’s computer, the cybercriminals told Case they found a computer virus from China and proof that hackers had gained access to their electronics.
Case also was told that tens of thousands of dollars had been charged to their credit cards. The scammers then instructed her to buy gift cards to max out the lines of credit on their credit cards as a way to preserve their assets.
Case did as instructed, using her credit cards to purchase tens of thousands of dollars in gift cards from various Apple, Home Depot and Sephora stores. She then sent the images of the gift cards to Connor.
Trickster gave fake name
Bank of America quickly flagged the purchases as being potentially fraudulent and called Case to inquire about what was going on.
Case informed the bank that she was making the gift card purchases at the instruction of one of their employees, a man named Ryan Connor. She provided the employee ID and case number he’d given her, both of which were fraudulent.
“Bank of America should have recognized that Debra Case was actively being victimized in an ongoing fraud,” the lawsuit says. “Bank of America should have escalated the situation to require further investigation. This is especially true since Ryan Connor was not a legitimate Bank of America employee, and neither the employee number nor case number actually existed.”
In their next phone call, the person claiming to be Connor informed Case he was working with the government and inquired further about her assets.
Case told him the couple had $1.97 million in investments and $200,000 in a savings account at UBS Financial Services, all of which was managed by their financial advisors at Fisher Investments.
Connor instructed Case and her husband to open a new bank account to avoid being further compromised.
Connor also told the couple that transferring their money into Bitcoin would be the most secure way to protect their savings. The couple did as told, opening accounts at Regions Bank for the purpose of transferring money out of UBS Financial Services so that the funds could then be transferred into Bitcoin.
According to the lawsuit, the Regions branch manager asked why they were opening the accounts. Case explained that she was liquidating nearly all of their assets, transferring them into Regions, and then immediately transferring them into Bitcoin.
“This should have been alarming for a financial institution to hear,” the lawsuit says. “However, instead of taking any action … to determine the presence of and to prevent fraud, the branch manager explained that he is a cryptocurrency enthusiast. Not only did the Regions branch manager take no action to investigate or halt the opening of the new accounts, he actually encouraged Debra Case’s stated course of action.”
Retirement savings gone
Case then contacted her investment adviser at Fisher Investments, the firm that managed their accounts.
Following instructions provided by Connor, Case told Fisher Investments she was going to lend out the money to fund a condominium assessment on behalf of many of their neighbors, and that the money would be returned to Fisher and UBS in six to eight weeks.
Neither Fisher nor UBS looked further into the reasons for the withdrawals, the lawsuit claims.
After opening the accounts at Regions Bank, the couple began liquidating their assets at Fisher Investments and UBS and transferring them to Regions.
“Over the course of approximately one month, plaintiffs then transferred approximately $2 million from Regions Bank to various Bitcoin wallet platforms over the course of numerous transactions, as directed by Ryan Connor, thereby wiping out their retirement accounts,” the lawsuit states.
Connor told the couple he would transfer their money out of Bitcoin and into a savings account at Bank of America. He also told them they needed new Social Security numbers and said he would take care of that. He informed them they’d have access to their money when they got their new Social Security numbers.
Connor then transferred the money out of their Bitcoin wallets, but instead of moving it into the couple’s account, the money was stolen.
The couple contacted Bank of America after Connor stopped returning phone calls.
“It was at this point that (they) learned from Bank of America that there was no Ryan Connor at Bank of America, no alerts on any of their accounts, no claim numbers, and no account with the funds that (they) had believed was transferred to them from the Bitcoin wallets,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit seeks attorneys’ fees and damages, with interest.
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan