So, the girl(s) called Chase posing as my wife and transferred $500 out of my account. A nice chunk of cash, but not too greedy so I could let it go and not pursue it any further. You swallow the embarrassment and move on with your life.
Moral of the story: please don't store large amounts of cash in your checking account.
Seems to me that the true moral of the story is don't cheat on your wife.
I mean it's possible, but if it really was as easy as just getting some information and posing as a wife, then this kind of fraud would be very widespread.
Sounds like the wife excuse was only needed because the scammers were female. If the scammers were male they could have easily impersonated him directly. It's not like the bank keeps voiceprints of their customers for identification.
The idea is that fraud is already illegal and there are methods for dealing with it.
Now when we get to 4-digit sums, the balance starts to shift to caution.
The only reason you think this is not a common occurrence is because people don't talk about it, very much like women who are sexually harassed are not vocal about being taken advantage of. Hey, now I know how it feels.
I don't talk about it, but I chose to because the top post suggested that somehow the information that you give out is always under your control. It's not, and this sort of scheme/robbery happens ALL the time.
If that happened to me I would move on, particularly because you don't know the criminals here and whether they'd seek retribution if you made a police report.
If someone roofied you, they'd probably be willing to do worse things to you if you hassled them. Just some advice; speaking from life experiences.