My family has been scammed by people impersonating FBI. It was incredibly elaborate and has been detailed in other posts but long story short.
1. Called from a legit bank line that family member looked up and confirmed. Then extreme details of what happened - opened up credit card, bought firearms, stopped, with account number which Bank of America confirmed was a legit bank number from previous encounter. Even emailed the bank to confirm this - didn't get a response at the time.
2. Then transferred to FBI agent who had an intake and took driver's license information. Then continued conversation on what was thought to be a government secured Microsoft Teams Account. The account was FBI Systems Filing and had no email or any info attached to them. They did show a video of the "FBI agent" in uniform with video chat. It looked all official as well.
3. Sent detailed FBI badge with ID as well as official documentation to sign confidentiality form because they were under investigation for a broader money laundering scheme that is international. Sent more FBI, Department of Justice information that they would normally detain and in the height of ICE enforcement of detaining without due cause seemed plausible (this was last year when scam happened).
4. Forced to do these body scans. Submit signatures to forensics for review. Went through a provided a financial statement on all income streams, investments, and retirements. All the while requiring frequent check-ins on Teams to make sure no one has come after you.
5. Got more "court documents" with orders that in order to clear the name and be dismissed that money needed to be submitted for inspection to make sure it's not dirty money and came from legit place.
6. In short then wired all retirement money and savings. Had to send a smaller amount through crypto to make sure there was no crypto money as part of money laundering as well. In short they also have at least the bank account number, and retirement account number from Fidelity.
7. Kept in contact over 6 months with constant check ins and eventually case "dismissed" but money was never refunded and kept being pushed back. They cited multiple issues in the DOJ and FBI from current events that were delaying things. The government shutdown was another excuse for the delay as well. All plausible.
8. Then suddenly last month stopped responding. And their plot was revealed on further inspection of the data, other people posts. But unfortunately, after many tears it seems like the money is lost.
At this point we are devastated but healing. I'd like concrete things we can do moving forward and it's overwhelming and difficult to process so wanted some clear guidance.
Things we've done concretely so far:
1. filed FTC fraud claim.
2. filed IC3 internet scam claim
3. filed local police report
4. called our bank to try to get money back - gone. So we close bank account and made a new one
5. All 3 credit bureaus have been frozen