Woman scammed out of $19K by fake bank investigators, Coral Springs cops say

A woman was scammed out of over $19,000 by people pretending to be fraud investigators from Wells Fargo, Coral Springs police said.

Now, 26-year-old Samarah Comrie, of Coral Springs, is charged with grand theft of more than $10,000 but less than $20,000, Broward court records show.

Detectives said they tracked the fraud to Comrie based on a debit card the victim was instructed to load with $19,460, supposedly to protect herself from fraud.

The victim reported to police that she received a text in January 2025 about an attempted fraud purchase at a Walmart, and she denied the purchase, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Then she got a phone call from the same number from someone identifying himself as a Wells Fargo investigator, telling her about a federal fraud investigation into the bank’s managers and tellers, police said.

The woman got two more calls from so-called Wells Fargo investigators telling her to go to her local branch, withdraw money from her account and put it into another Wells Fargo account to safeguard her money, according to the affidavit.

One of the fake investigators gave the woman the number of a debit card that she could put money on, then she went to the Wells Fargo branch at 1950 N. University Drive in Coral Springs and took out $19,460, police said.

Once she deposited the money onto the debit card, she said she had a “strange feeling,” and went back to her local branch, where staff said there was no federal investigation and she had been scammed, according to detectives.

Investigators said they learned the debit card was in Comrie’s name, then they pulled footage of Comrie withdrawing $10,200 from her account at an ATM in the days proceeding the victim depositing money onto Comrie’s card.

Comrie didn’t want to speak to investigators about the case when they reached out to her, but they tracked down her boss at a rehabilitation center where she worked, and he identified her in the surveillance footage, documents show.

Records show Comrie’s arrest warrant was served March 28.

This type of scam isn’t uncommon, and Coral Springs police arrested a man in a similar type of fraud scheme in January.

In that case, a woman reported she began receiving calls from people who identified themselves as Bank of America fraud investigators who detected unusual activity on her account. They convinced her to withdraw $40,000 and hand it over to a Pompano Beach man at her apartment complex, police said. He’s now facing prosecution.