Consumer complaint received 2022-05-02
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I was a victim in multiple XXXX scams that occurred at the same time on XX/XX/2022. I posted a stroller that I was selling on XXXX for {$200.00}. Two prospective buyers messaged me on XXXX and wanted to purchase the stroller. They asked if I took XXXX and I said yes. Both of them in the name of XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXX who seem like they are unrelated to each other ) asked for my name and email to send XXXX payments to. Both of them said they sent each {$200.00} payments to me but for both transactions, I never received the funds in my Chase account. However, both of them said to check my email and that I should receive an email from XXXX. I should have checked these two emails closer ( all of these transactions were done over my smartphone so it was hard to see who the originator of the emails were ) when I received them b/c both emails impersonated official " XXXX '' XXXX but they were actually sent from personal gmail accounts. Both emails stated that my funds were pending b/c XXXX has a problem crediting my Chase account given the status of my XXXX account is not a business user. 
In order for me to be upgraded to a business user, I have to contact the payee to XXXX over to me another {$300.00} each and in return, I will need to refund the payees {$300.00} and to replay to both emails with a screen shot showing that I have sent over the {$300.00} each to both payees. And then it was weird that still the {$200.00} + {$300.00} funds each from both payees did not come through in my chase account as a credit but the payees kept on asking me where is their refund is. And then another bait and switch " XXXX '' email came to me asking that my incoming funds are further tied up in XXXX and that in order for me to receive these funds I need to send more amounts via XXXX to various people who are supposedly authorized agents of XXXX. In the email it says that once I send the funds over, the funds will be returned to me and I will receive a higher gross amount. I sent over the payment as suggested and I still did not receive any funds. More emails like that from " XXXX '' came through and I unfortunately sent more payment through to various individuals and I still did not receive any funds. Even the day after, I have not received any funds. I did checked my Chase account on XX/XX/2022 and a total of {$1900.00} of funds did went out and cleared to these recipients. Still on XX/XX/2022, no funds related to these transactions were ever credited to me. When I got home on XX/XX/XXXX, I was getting very worried that none of the transactions that were promised to me were credited to me but all my XXXX payments went through on Chase and were clearly deducted from my Chase account. As a result, I refused to make anymore payments. I went online to do some research on whether or not anyone has encountered something like this before and sure enough, there were comments on XXXX on how others were scammed like this. That is when I noticed this was a scam. 

Note that all communication between me and the scammers were done via facebook messenger. They were urgent and consistently wanted me to check my email for XXXX notifications. I asked one of the scammers in the XXXX chat as to why I am sending payments to people other than to them ( because if you look in the emails, you will notice that I am instructed to send XXXX payments to various individuals other than the scammers ' names ). That one scammer told me those folks are authorized agents of XXXX and they are there to settle the payments. I unfortunately believed that scammer. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I have submitted a scam claim on XXXX and I have also reported this to the FTC and the FBI. On XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted Chase to file a dispute on the XXXX transaction debits that were pulled from my account and Chase said that unfortunately, they are not able to dispute these charges and the only resolution on their end was to notify XXXX that these transactions were considered a scam, and they will have to wait for XXXX to respond.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief