MIL is elderly but still mentally sharp. Had $40K in a local credit union savings account. Got a call from a foreign-sounding woman saying $7k had been transferred to another person and they were worried about an "account takeover". Seemed like a classic phone scam (because when does a bank ever call you?) so I rushed over to make sure she wasn't downloading some kind of remote access software or something. She wasn't. While I was there the woman called back and I spoke with her. It turns out she was legit! She was from the credit union's "Enterprise Loss Prevention" and told MIL to go to any local branch ASAP and they would explain.
The branch told us (in person) that $7K was transferred to another of their customers (never heard of the person) 3 days ago. The credit union changed her passwords and account numbers and told us to "clean" her computer, apparently thinking there was a key-logger. We are doing that now, but she had not accessed her account for 9 months before the transfer so a key logger seems unlikely.
My question: did this other person steal from her? How? I've never heard of a theft/scam with such an obvious record trail. The credit union immediately identified the person and is recovering the money. Maybe an internal theft from an employee? Maybe a credit union mistake when transferring money? Do banks still make mistakes like this? Any insights welcome, thanks.