Scammer swipes $1M from metro Atlanta business owner by posing as her bank

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – One million dollars — more than a decade’s worth of hard work — gone in less than an hour.

Stephanie Kelley said she and her husband fell victim to a scheme so sophisticated, they did not see any red flags until their account was wiped clean.

“It took my breath when I saw it. I fell to my knees,” Kelley said, as she wiped away tears. “It’s been an exhausting year-and-a-half.”

In December 2022, $1 million was stolen from the business she and her husband started, West Metro Glass.

The scammer pretended to be from Region’s Bank. The act was good.

“You feel violated,” Kelley said. “I know the dollar signs were just dollar signs to the individual who did this. But they don’t know what we worked our whole lives for.”

She said 12 years of work was undone through 12 wire transfers to their business account.

Records show it was all done in a matter of 50 minutes.

“While 50 minutes may not sound significant or a long time to most people, to some people, it could mean everything they ever dreamed of having their whole lives taken away,” said Kelley.

She said it started with what looked like a bogus purchase charged to one of their corporate cards. Just as they were about to call their bank to report it, they saw the bank was calling them at their office line.

Kelley said the caller ID showed the bank’s phone number, and the man on the other end identified himself as a Regions employee.

The next step was entering a PIN into the phone to confirm her identity. All the “one-pass” authentication prompts, Kelley said, were just like the ones on typical Regions phone calls.

“He said he would stop the card and freeze the ‘one-pass system’ so no other charges could go through on it,” she said.

She thought her problem was solved, but that’s when she realized her phone was acting up as it could not receive incoming calls.

Then, they noticed another purchase on the card they were assured was stopped.

This time, Kelley called the bank herself.

“I called the number on the back of the card, and we explained everything to her, and when I heard her go ‘hmm,’ my soul left my body. My mind didn’t automatically go to the checking account, but I knew something was wrong,” she said.

Their money was gone.

They immediately reported it to their bank and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

“My husband and I went without our salaries to make sure our employees were covered, and thank God we had reserves,” she said. “Other businesses may have had to close their doors.”

They have been able to get back about $600,000, but are still out more than $300,000. Regions told them whatever was not recovered would be a loss.

She shared her story on TikTok, where her videos have been viewed more than a million times.

“It is infuriating that it is this easy to, in the most technologically advanced era of our time (doing something like this),” said Kelley, who added she wants to protect people’s money and stop these scammers.

“These are professional criminals,” said Special Agent Aaron Seres with FBI Atlanta.

He deals with financial crimes and said Kelley is, sadly, not alone in her struggle.

“Impersonation schemes are generally pretty common. They’ve been on the rise these last couple of years,” Seres said. “It could be your institution or another company. It could be someone pretending to be with the federal government. The goal is to make it appear real.”

He advised they will fish for information to access your data in real time.

“The best advice is have a trusted number. If you think something is suspicious, where it involves your money, always contact the trusted number, even if you think it is the bank.”

He also advised going online to report suspicious activity.

Atlanta News First reached out to Regions Bank, who said “This is a cautionary story about what can happen when someone gives a scammer their banking password or other sensitive information.”

“There’s a reason we consistently warn people to never give account details to an unsolicited caller and to watch out for Caller ID scams and imposter scams, where scammers make it look like they’re calling from a legitimate company. A real bank is not going to call unannounced and ask for the information,” Regions Bank said in a statement. “Ms. Kelley described in her initial TikTok video on this issue. Scammers, however, will do exactly that — using fear and manipulation to try to get what they want. Don’t fall for it. Remember, once scammers get into an account because they were given a password, they can not only move money very quickly, they can also change a customer’s contact information, and that hinders a bank’s ability to alert the customer to suspicious transactions.”

“While we have deep sympathy for anyone who is the victim of a financial crime, we must be clear that Regions Bank did not cause the compromise of the account’s credentials, and we urge customers to keep their information secure. We hope anyone who sees this story will remember to never give someone passwords, PINs, or anything else that would give a scammer the virtual keys to unlock an account.”

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating Kelley’s case. No arrests have been made.

Atlanta News First also asked Regions if there was any employee there who went by the name the scammer gave Kelley. They told us there was neither a current nor former employee who went by that name.

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