Scary experience today when I was stopped while going for a walk with my 2-year-old. Posting here to get advice on getting back any money I can and protecting myself from further losses
3 men approached me and blocked my path, claiming they were collecting donations for the family of a child who was shot and killed. It set off some alarm bells, but I wanted to bet on people being decent, so I offered to make a $25 donation [I know this was a screw up, won't happen again]. Things happened pretty quickly from there - they wanted me to put down my name, phone number and email, and I pulled out a card [again - know this was a mistake in retrospect] to make the donation. They asked me to download an app, then took my phone out of my hand aggressively and started explaining they would set it up.
As they took my phone from my hand I realized the situation I had put myself in, there were three of them and I had my son. The other two started trying to distract me with forms for more and more info. It looked like one of them was trying to add my cards to Apple Pay on his phone while the other did something I couldn't see on my phone. I tried to get it back but wasn't as assertive as I probably should have been because they outnumbered me and I wasn't feeling safe. I finally grabbed the phone and started walking away, and they let me leave, but the damage was done. I had given them my name, phone number, and email and they had successfully posted 2 $5,000 charges to two of my credit cards. I'm not sure if it went through their phone or using my Apple Wallet on my own phone. They tried to make multiple charges for $5,000, but luckily Chase blocked the duplicates only letting the first one through.
Once I got away from them I immediately called Chase, where I learned about the $10k of charges ($5k and $5k) - associated with a PayPal account that is purportedly an auto shop. The transactions had been processed or something, so they couldn't immediately stop it. I have tried and cannot find any evidence of the business it supposedly was sent to. What I've done:
**Chase**
* Reported the fraud to Chase's fraud department
* I closed out both of my cards and new ones have been re-issued
* I changed my password and the phone number associated with the Chase account to my spouse's to protect against any 2FA hacks given they know my phone number
* I went into the Chase branch and had them remove any open virtual wallet connections - seeing the card be removed from our Apple Pay accounts gave me some relief
* I locked the re-issued cards through the app (though I think this is only helpful in the case of the physical card)
* On the phone they said they would follow up in the next 3 months pending an investigation. The person said that candidly it was a 50/50 shot my fraud claim was approved, given from my POV it was clear cut fraud if not a robbery.
* Working against me is that I was there and they [may have] used my phone
* Working for me is that they clearly misrepresented themselves.