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Schwab, crypto, alleged fraud and an elderly couple's $18.5M loss
August 21, 2019 San Francisco / CA / USA - Charles Schwab office building in SOMA district; The Charles Schwab Corporation is a bank and stock brokerage firm Credit: Sundry Photography/Sundry Photography - stock.adobe.com
Charles Schwab may have a big elder fraud problem on its hands.
For the third time in less than two months, Schwab and its affiliates have been accused of doing virtually nothing to prevent scammers from draining its clients' accounts of their retirement savings. The latest case, filed Wednesday in federal district court in Northern California, alleges Schwab stood idly by while bad actors directed an elderly Los Angeles County couple to take nearly $30 million out of their accounts and transfer much of it to a cryptocurrency exchange via Bank of America.
Ultimately, $18.5 million of that was converted into crypto and sent to the scammers, making it likely unrecoverable, according to the suit.
The allegations come just over a month after Schwab was accused in another federal suit of doing too little to prevent bad actors from defrauding a 92-year-old client of roughly $278,000. And on Monday, a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel hit TD Ameritrade, which was acquired by Schwab in 2020, with a $100,000 fine for failing to stop a similar scheme.
In all three cases, the alleged scam was run essentially along the same lines.
Fraudsters hacked into prospective victims' computers and took over their financial accounts. They then posed as law enforcement or financial firm representatives seeking to move assets elsewhere, for the ostensible purpose of safekeeping. In reality, though, they were bringing the money within their own grasp.
That's just what Lawrence Liu, 84, and his wife, Ling-Ling Liu, 76, allege in their suit filed Wednesday against Charles Schwab, Bank of America and the crypto exchange Unchained Trading. The Lius' suit asks the same question posed in other recent cases of alleged elder abuse: Why did their trusted financial institutions ignore obvious warning signs and not intervene sooner?
"This case arises from the calculated and devastating abuse of vulnerable elders, committed by financial institutions that are required to — but which failed in this instance to — prevent the very type of anomalous and suspicious fraudulent activity visited upon plaintiffs," according to the suit.
A spokesperson for Schwab said, "We sympathize with the Liu family, and we hope the criminals who stole their money are brought to justice. But the allegations in the complaint cross the line from advocacy to outright falsity."
The spokesperson added, "The Liu family authorized every wire that left Schwab, and each wire went to an account that the Liu family controlled."
Elder fraud — the crime of the 21st century?
The Lius' lawsuit is just the latest case to draw attention to the plague of elder fraud, which is sometimes referred to as "the crime of the 21st century." The AARP has estimated that people 60 and over lose more than $28 billion a year to scammers, much of it unreported because the victims are embarrassed to admit they fell prey to such schemes.
Hugh Berkson, a principal attorney at Cleveland-based McCarthy Lebit Crystal & Liffman and a former president of the Public Investors Advocate Bar Association, said firms have clearly fallen behind in their ability to protect client assets from sophisticated fraudsters.
"As the baby boomer generation grows older, and as more of them retire, there is going to be more opportunity for fraud in this area," Berkson said. "And the tools the scammers use are continuing to improve with terrifying consequences."
One of the Lius' lawyers, David Silver, of the Coral Springs, Florida-based firm Silver Miller, said he doesn't think new laws are needed to prevent the sort of fraud he and his colleagues are alleging Schwab, Bank of America and Unchained Trading allowed to occur. He said most scams "would stop if financial institutions and exchanges were to uphold their obligations as gatekeepers to senior citizens' accounts and assets."
"Financial institutions and exchanges just need to meet the responsibilities they already have under existing laws to protect their clients," Silver added. "Anything less is a gross disservice and a dereliction of duty with our trusted financial guards asleep at the gate."
How financial scammers tricked vulnerable savers
Silver declined to provide biographical details about the Lius, saying they "are very private." Here, according to their filing, is how the elderly couple was defrauded of millions.
The Lius became clients of Charles Schwab this spring after accounts they had formerly held at TD Ameritrade were transferred over following the merger of the two firms in September 2023. In July of this year, Lawrence Liu saw a pop-up warning appear on his computer telling him his Schwab accounts were under attack.
Liu was provided with a phone number ostensibly for a Schwab employee who could help him protect his assets. The scammer advised Liu to move his and his wife's assets to other institutions for safekeeping.
The fake Schwab employee was able to gain Liu's trust in part by displaying extensive familiarity with Liu's account holdings — the kind of knowledge only an insider might be expected to have. The movement of funds out of the Lius' Schwab accounts over to Bank of America began on July 9 with the transfer of $50,000.
That was followed the next day by the sale of roughly $22 million in stocks the Lius held in their Schwab accounts. Meanwhile, the scammer posing as a Schwab employee had persuaded the Lius to open an account at the Austin, Texas-based crypto exchange Unchained Training.
On July 11, the Lius sold nearly $1 million in additional stock and set up connections linking their Bank of America account to Unchained Trading and another of their Schwab accounts to Bank of America. Over the ensuing days and weeks, the Lius would use those conduits and similar ones with Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase to move millions of dollars out of their Schwab accounts.
Of the money that made it to Unchained Trading, most of it was used to purchase cryptocurrency. Those digital assets were then sent to an online address believed to be maintained by the scammer who posed as a Schwab employee.
Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, smelling potential fraud, halted transfers
Crucially, both Wells Fargo and JPMorgan eventually refused to transfer the Lius' assets to Unchained Trading, citing suspicions of wire fraud.
Charles Schwab and Bank of America, though, continued heeding their requests, even though nothing in the couple's history suggested any interest in cryptocurrency.
"The wire transfers from Plaintiffs' BofA account — from which no wire transfers had ever previously been sent — had increased from $700,000.00 to $2,000,000.00 to $3,500,000.00 to $5,000,000.00," according to the suit. "BofA had clear and actual knowledge of the increasing amount of the wire transfers being sent from Plaintiffs' BofA account in a short period of time, yet BofA continued to authorize them."
A Bank of America spokesperson declined to comment for this story. Unchained Trading did not respond to a request for comment.
Throughout the transfers, the Lius received a series of letters ostensibly from Schwab and the IRS. Some of them warned them that their Social Security numbers had been stolen and advised them to protect their assets by moving them to Unchained Trading. One of the letters also informed Lawrence Liu that any conversion of his assets to cryptocurrency at Unchained Trading would only be temporary and that the money would eventually be returned to him.
Sudden halt to crypto purchases
Unchained Trading continued allowing the Lius to buy cryptocurrency until Sept. 16, when it suddenly refused to process a purchase request for $3.5 million. Unchained instead sent the Lius an email telling them their account was being closed and that the unused money would be returned.
All told, the Lius and their lawyers estimate that Schwab authorized the transfer of $29.55 million out of accounts it held for the Lius. Of that money, roughly $22 million was routed through Bank of America to Unchained Trading.
A person familiar with the case said Schwab did reach out to the police after the fraud occurred. Law enforcement officers visited Lawrence Liu only to be told his assets had been transferred for "investment purposes."
The Lius' suit accuses Schwab, Bank of America and Unchained Trading of violating California's Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act and unfair competition law, and it accuses the defendants of gross negligence. It also accuses Unchained Trading specifically of breaching various provisions of the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act.
