Memphis senior sues Regions Bank, says employees did not protect her from scam

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - A Memphis woman is suing Regions Bank after she says they allowed her to be scammed out of nearly all of her life savings.

“I believe banks have a duty, especially to their elderly customers, to protect them from scams like this,” said the victim’s son, attorney Jeffrey Rosenblum.

Jeffrey says his mother, 88-year-old Maureen Rosenblum, walked into the Regions Bank at Poplar Avenue and Briarcrest Avenue on November 29, 2022, hoping to protect herself from fraud.

“When she said, ‘Can I call my son? He’s a lawyer and maybe he’ll help you.’ [the fraudster said] ‘No ma’am,’ they’ll know about it and they’ll divert and they’ll change their actions. This is the only way we can protect your funds and the only way we can protect others from being defrauded,’” said Jeffrey. “Mom thought she was protecting others... so she listened to everything he said.”

The Memphis attorney says his mother had fallen victim to a scam. Almost all of her life savings, $120,000, in the wind.

“My mother had never wired money before in her entire life,” said Jeffrey. “She got a message on her laptop. One of the things she enjoyed doing is getting on Facebook and emailing her friends who moved away from Memphis, and she sees this message ‘Your computer’s been hacked!’ and she panicked.”

A lawsuit was filed on November 28, 2023, almost one year later.

The lawsuit says the message Maureen received said it was from Microsoft’s “fraud department.”

A man who called himself “Josh,” the lawsuit says, told her to transfer $95,000 into “protected accounts” to prevent her money from being stolen.

“Josh” gave Maureen banking information for an account at Hang Seng Bank in Hong Kong.

The lawsuit also alleges Maureen was instructed to tell bank employees that the money was for a family medical emergency, but things didn’t end there.

“She was told by this ‘Josh’ fella to go back to bank the following day and to wire $25,000 more to man called Shen Ciao Hsin at Standard Charter Bank in Hong Kong and Regions Bank again allowed her to do it,” said Jeffrey.

According to the lawsuit, Maureen was asked about the second transfer by a security officer after a teller reported the transactions.

She told her family everything on December 3.

Jeffrey says they called the security officer, asking them to recall the wired money.

The lawsuit claims they were told the bank could not recall the money until the following Monday, advising them to file a report with police despite Jeffrey urging them not to wait.

By the time Monday afternoon came around, he says the money was gone.

“I’m hopeful Regions will do what I think is the right thing by calling and apologizing and saying, ‘Please dismiss your lawsuit, we’d like to reimburse your mother for the money we allowed to be defrauded from her,’” said Rosenblum.

The lawsuit also alleges Maureen was not told about a process to recover large international wire transfers within 72 hours, and claims the bank failed to train employees to prevent transactions when there are suspicions and protect customers from fraud and abuse.

She’s asking to be awarded the money she lost, and at least $500,000 in damages.

We reached out to Regions Bank for a comment on Rosenblum’s lawsuit.

A spokesperson told us:

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