TYSONS, Va. — A federal jury recently ruled that a Tysons Corner-based bank must repay a client $1.5 million over wrongful transfers.
On Friday, the jury with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down a verdict that favored 81-year-old Richard Bennett of Annandale in a trial against Old Dominion National Bank.
His attorney, Blake Weiner, argued that the bank transferred the money from the account to a fake person and third-party scammer on different occasions in less than a month without valid authorization. The lawsuit said the bank “failed to take appropriate steps to verify the source of the transfer requests.”
In November 2022, Bennett created a personal banking account to collect interest on nearly $2.5 million. The bank knew the account was not designed to send wire transfers and had no Wire Transfer Service Agreement, according to the lawsuit. Even if it was set up, outgoing wires couldn’t exceed $100,001.
However, the following January, Weiner said an unknown fraudster gained access to Bennett’s email and messaged the vice president of retail banking manager for information on how to enroll for online banking. Days later, the same alleged scammer contacted the same bank employee after setting up online banking to request a change in the account’s phone number.
“The bank simply sent them a form, asked them to sign it, and they sent it back and all the bank did to verify it was they looked at the signature and claimed it looks similar to Mr. Bennett’s signature and signatures we’ve seen in other documents,” Weiner told WUSA9. “It’s absolutely perplexing.”
Old Dominion National Bank hasn’t responded to a request for a statement or interview from WUSA9.
Weiner said he filed the lawsuit after the bank refused to repay Bennett, despite federal and state statutes. During the trial, he argued the bank didn’t follow proper verification protocols.
“I think the better question is how a bank could have done this?” he replied. “Customers trust banks to keep our money safe. We trust them to do the smart thing and logical thing.”
The bank eventually authorized three wire transfers to a person in Florida under a wealth management email address, which was later revealed didn’t exist and the address tied to it was someone’s home, per the lawsuit. There were also two online banking transfers to “Merrill China,” with an invoice that had a number with a Florida area code, but the listed address is in New York.
The transfers happened within three weeks.
A suspect hasn’t been identified in the case.
The trial didn’t mention a specific date on when the money should be reinstated. Per a joint verdict form WUSA9 obtained, the jury favored each of the five claims to Bennett.
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