DAYTONA BEACH, Fla — A Daytona Beach woman fell victim to a scam that’s changed her life forever.
“I’m terrified. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. That was, you know, that was my nest egg,” said Carol Ann Moritz.
Moritz lost much of her life savings after she was contacted by scammers pretending to be from her bank.
She told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal, “I have enough to pay the bills, but I don’t have enough for a nice life anymore.”
The scam started with a phone call from a woman who claimed she was with Fifth Third Bank. The woman told Moritz that someone in Akron, Ohio was trying to access her account and steal her money.
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According to Moritz, “She said, ‘Well, I need to verify who you are and tell me your password.’ And I said, ‘I don’t remember my password.’”
Before long, the caller had her supposed “supervisor” from Fifth Third Bank on the line who convinced her to hand over her bank card number to verify her identity. Then that scammer posing as the “supervisor” claimed he had even more startling information about what was going on inside Fifth Third Bank.
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Moritz said, “He knew of an investigation by the FBI and the FDIC who were investigating Fifth Third Bank employees who were scamming people.”
They transferred Moritz to a third scammer impersonating an FBI agent. That fake FBI agent even sent her an official-looking message detailing the fake investigation.
Retired FBI Special Agent Keith Givens said, “If people receive a message from someone they’re talking to on the phone, they should always verify that message independently. Go online or call a local government office to ask if that’s a typical practice.”
Givens, who now runs private investigation and cyber fraud consulting firm IntegrityC4, says these types of bank and government impersonation scams are sophisticated and often successful in stealing big money.
“The more sophisticated teams will use multiple people. They feel if they use more than one person, and they put the person on hold that that adds to their legitimacy,” Givens said.
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In Carol Ann Moritz’ case, the scammers convinced her she needed to help them trap employees within the bank. That involved wiring more than $135,000 to a Bank of America in south Florida under the guise she was buying a business. It wasn’t until the next day while she was traveling out of state that she learned it was all a scam.
“These bank impersonation scams have taken it to another level,” said Kris Edwards, Head of Fraud Prevention for Fifth Third Bank.
Edwards told Action 9 the number of these impersonation scams at their banks tripled from 2024 to 2025. They are on track for even more this year. Most of these scams target seniors and often spoof the phone number so it appears the real bank is calling them. He said Fifth Third has been trying to educate customers and implement safeguards against fraud in their app.
He said, “The one thing for people to be aware of is they’re always like pushing the sense of urgency and that you have to take action.”
In this case, Fifth Third helped Moritz close out the account, set-up a new one and report it to law enforcement. The bank also tried to recover the funds immediately after she called them, the scammers had already moved the money making it nearly impossible to track down.
Moritz said, “Every now and then I just break into tears, and you know, and everything makes me afraid. I hear a noise in the house, and I just feel personally so violated.”
Her case with Fifth Third Bank is still open, but it doesn’t seem likely she’ll get any of her money back. Retired FBI Agent Keith Givens said it’s extremely important to report the fraud to your bank, the FBI and local authorities as soon as you learn you’ve been scammed. That’s the best chance for recovering the money because the bad guys will try to move it quickly.