Consumer Confidential: Chase let an elderly customer wire more than $600,000 to an overseas scammer

Seniors lose more than $600 million a year to fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission. That's shocking and heartbreaking.

But what also raises my hackles is when banks turn a blind eye to such activity, authorizing money transfers when it should be obvious that something out of the ordinary is happening.

Lisa Spanierman contacted me recently to relate how her 81-year-old mother got fleeced to the tune of more than $600,000, and how Chase bank did precious little to prevent the theft of much of her life's savings.

"It's mind-numbing," said Spanierman, 53, a professor of counseling at Arizona State University. "I can almost understand the first time the bank authorized one of these wire transfers. But when it happens again and again,