Consumer complaint received 2023-06-06
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: DE
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
The Discover online savings account jointly owned by me and my husband, XXXX XXXX, was fraudulently accessed twice, once on XX/XX/2023 and again on XX/XX/2023. On each occasion the person who accessed our account processed a wire transfer for {$20000.00} ( XXXX XXXX XXXX  ). At the same time someone used all the DiscoverCard points accrued on our credit card to purchase six {$200.00} XXXX XXXX e-certificates. Total dollar loss to us is {$41000.00} That figure includes two {$30.00} wire transfer fees charged us by Discover. 
On XX/XX/2023, I immediately phoned DiscoverCard Fraud department as soon as I got the first email from Discover informing me of the wire transfer. At first, I thought the email was a scam but initiated a call to Discover just to be sure. The Discover employee I spoke to assured me there were no wire transfers showing on my account and felt the email to be a scam. They also declined my offer to forward the email to their security department -- saying it was not necessary. Later that same day a second email from Discovercard was delivered to my email inbox and it said essentially the same thing. At first I thought it was just a second attempt at fraud since I had not replied to the first email. But, just to be sure, I phoned DiscoverCard Fraud department again. As a result of that second call to them they did acknowledge that there had indeed been two wire transfers made from our savings account. An employee named XXXX on their Wires Team filed a dispute regarding those transfers and also changed the account number on our savings account. He suggested it would take two weeks to process the dispute and get any information back. 
I changed both my ID and password and then made another call to Discover, trying to determine how our account had been accessed so I could take any further steps available to protect the account from any further fraud. I have spent 3 days on the phone being transferred to one department after another, just to be told that department had nothing to do with my situation only to be transferred again. On just one day I was transferred and re transferred, speaking to eight different Discover employees. 
What Discover has done for me so far is to file that we a dispute the transactions. They also said they would, as a courtesy to us but not anything that they were required to do, send a request to the two banks the funds were transferred to asking that the funds be returned. Based on all the conversations I have had with Discover I believe that, as far as Discover is concerned, the only hope we have of getting our money back is if the receiving banks return the funds. 
This situation has been made much worse by Discover 's employee giving me the wrong information on my initial call and since then I have experienced stonewalling, 'that 's not this department, I have to transfer you ' again and again. They will provide me with almost no information about the transactions including XXXX codes or IP addresses, information without which I can not file a XXXX complaint with the FBI.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation