A GRIEVING son has learned that his father has been robbed — from the grave.
The man learned that $133,000 was stolen from his father’s estate account at SunTrust Bank, which later became Truist Bank, months after he had died in 2022.
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Perran Davis collected dozens of pages of records after discovering the theft, evidence he provided investigators and that he had to present in probate court as the executor of his father’s account.
“It’s not my money. It’s the money of my deceased father’s estate account. I’m responsible for that, I have to report to the probate court about that, so what am I supposed to do?” Davis asked rhetorically during an interview with Queen City News.
WHERE THE MONEY WENT
Davis told local reporters that his father had opened the account in 2019 and accumulated over $133,000 before he began doing business with a company in Florida named Imperial Freight Lines.
Davis had used the company to transfer his father’s belongings and could show records of two legitimate charges from the company in November 2021.
But several charges and checks made out to different people — that he said were unauthorized — started with a $1 charge on November 23.
Davis’ father’s account had a balance of $139,501 at the beginning of November but was already down to $113,677 by the end of the month, records showed.
The thieves continued to drain the account over the next few months, bringing the account to a balance of negative $2,088 by February 2022.
A DOUBLE CRIME
Although Davis first thought that the moving company must be behind the fraudulent withdrawals, he soon learned that the scheme was more complicated.
Just days after the investigator assigned to Davis’ case was put on the job, he was alerted when the owner of Imperial Freight filed a complaint against one of his employees on suspicion of fraud.
Christopher Hoffman told police he suspected worker Bruce Horner of stealing client info from contracts he was brokering.
The police were already familiar with Horner.
“Bruce Horner would create contracts using accounts of genuine customers who he dealt with previously, but the contracts that he would create would be for fictitious names using the real accounts. So, he’d be paid commission on these contracts,” Detective Richard Clarke told local reporters.
Hoffman told Clark that the company had identified 14 instances of faked contracts that Horner had worked on.
The owner then worked with police to lure Horner to his place of employment and arrest him on the spot.
Police said they found ample evidence of wrongdoing to move ahead with charges against Horner, who was previously found guilty of multiple financial crimes.
Investigators believe Horner may have defrauded at least another 54 people.
He was charged with multiple crimes in March 2022 including first-degree grand theft, fraudulently obtaining property, and fraudulent misrepresentation, according to local newspaper Tamarac Talk.
Horner pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on $56,000 bail pending trial.
BANK OVERSIGHT
Davis said that Truist Bank only sent him one fraud warning alert after months of money disappearing.
Three days after he learned the account was empty, he also received several notifications. But they were too little, too late, he said.
“Red alert. It should have been impossible, there was over $130,000 in that account,” Davis told police.
It’s impossible to wrap your mind around how can this happen.
Perran Davis
“It’s impossible to wrap your mind around how can this happen. I thought that I was dealing with a reputable bank that had safeguards in place, and they obviously failed.”
Davis also holds the owner of Imperial Freight partially to blame for not doing more in-depth background checks on employees before hiring them for sensitive positions.
“It took us three minutes on Google to find him. How hard is that?” Davis said.
TRUIST BANK RESPONDS
Davis said that Truist representatives initially only wanted to refund him part of the missing funds, but agreed to pay back most of the money by May 2022 except for the remaining $21,000.
The entire experience has soured him on working with the bank in the future.
“I will never trust them again,” Davis said.
Bank representatives declined to comment on the specifics of their investigation into the missing money to local reporters but did send an emailed statement.
“Protecting our clients and their accounts continues to be a top priority for us. Truist takes instances of fraud very seriously and we go to great lengths to detect and prevent fraud, including providing prompts within the user experience to help clients identify red flags that may indicate scams,” Shelley Miller of Truist’s communications team wrote.
Truist Bank did not immediately respond to a request for updates by The U.S. Sun.
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