Consumer complaint received 2022-10-16
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: AL
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
We were scammed as we attempted to obtain a loan. We currently back with USAA. 

First contact was XX/XX/XXXX to our daughter ( who is not named account-holder but has an account under ours ) demanding repayment. My husband called the bank & told them what happened. He was told they would investigate the fraud, would take 3 business days, but we were probably fine. 

When I got paid on XX/XX/XXXX, I could not access the account. When my husband called, he was told the account was frozen because it was overdrawn by {$1000.00}. He exp that was not what he was initially told. They said that's all they knew. My husband called back later that day, that person asked many questions, told us the checks deposited were from CA child support agency ( we know no one in CA, have never lived in CA, don't receive child support from anywhere ) & person doing it was from Florida. He said the account had been improperly investigated & it would be 3 more days before it would be done, but he'd try to ask for it to be done faster, since our account had been frozen for 4 days. 

After hearing from no one, he called back Friday. We were told that because the money was moved from one account to another before it was withdrawn - accounts that we own- they were holding us responsible. They said had they money not been moved, we wouldn't have had to pay. There is more than {$1000.00} currently in the account, but that could not be used to pay it, it has to be an outside source. Until this is satisfied, the account will remain inaccessible. NSF fees will continue to accrue. 

We were never notified our account was frozen. We only found out because I couldn't access my deposit. We never received any written notice afterward. The only money in the account in from my Social Security Disability payments, so it is all government money they are refusing access to. We've been given conflicting reasons & explanations every time we've spoken with them. We haven't received anything in writing saying we are responsible for this money. 

They chose to cancel my husband 's debit card & reissue it, which he received on XX/XX/XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX. He was never told of this. His was the only card they canceled, not mine nor my daughter 's ( she largely doesn't use her account anymore ). That is the actions taken when one has been hacked or scammed ; we know, because we've been hacked/scammed somewhere between 10-15 times in the last 3-4 years, only 2 of which USAA actually caught, but after the fact. 

The only time USAA initiated contact was the initial collection attempt, when they called my daughter. We have driven the entire thing. To speak with someone on Friday, my husband was on the phone for an hour and a half before he reached anyone. When he tried to speak with them again, he was on hold for nearly an hour & was disconnected. 

When USAA told us we were responsible for this money, they said it was because the money was moved from one account to another, and that otherwise, we would not have been. That seems disingenuous. These accounts all belong to us, under our name as the named account-holders. We did not know the money was not going to our main account. When the scammers asked us if they could put it in a particular account, we, like many, did not know if the account number they gave was our main one or not ( we have 4-5, including our daugher 's, under our account. Money was subsequently placed in another account ( that turned out to be our daughter 's ) that we did not give permission for it to go into. 

We have since learned that this scam is a " money mule '' situation. We do not have good credit & we're desperate to obtain a loan because our refrigerator went out 2 months ago. We need to replace it & haven't been able to find a loan that wasn't usary. In hindsight, we should have realized this was too good to be true, but we are in sure a dire situation, we just didn't take the care we should've. It was sent under the letterhead of XXXX XXXX, so we felt it should be legitimate. 

In withdrawing the money to send scammers, we learned the accounts the money was in was not tied to our debit card. We had to put the money in our main account to be able to access to money to send back to the scammers. That single action is why USAA does not consider this a scamming situation, but one for which we are responsible. 

We've attempted to speak to a supervisor. We were told on Friday to expect a call in 2-3 business days. Meanwhile, today makes Day 8 of our account being frozen. 

I tried reaching out over social media, since that can elicit a quicker response. I was assured we get one. Because we'd had so much trouble, they told me they'd escalated ti to their highest level. 12 hours later, we hadn't heard from anyone. The people who handle this area work from XXXX, so anyone who works has a difficult time reaching them, especially given the hour and half wait times and disconnects we experienced. 

We were the unwitting victims of a scam. We would have never willingly participated in anything like this. Yet instead of being helped, we are being treated like criminals. We would have had no money at all if my husband had not already changed his money to go into another account we had, because we'd become tired of the hacking and customer service issues we'd had. This confirms that his decision was correct. Our daughter stopped using her account about a year ago after seeing all the problems we dealt with. She begged us to stop using USAA too. I wish we had listened, but we'd been with them for 15 years or more & kept hoping things would get better. 

And as were are in the midst of dealing with all of this, on XX/XX/XXXX, my daughter got a call from someone saying they were from USAA, aggressively demanding payment. She felt weird about the call, took down the number, and ended the call. She looked up the number and found it was *not* USAA. In telling us what they said, they knew details of the event that only USAA and we know, some of which we didn't know until we were told by USAA after the fact on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Concerned that this was an attempt to continue the fraud - because we couldn't figure out how anyone would know the details, as we had told no one, not even our daughter, because frankly, we're so embarrassed about what happened - we relayed this information to USAA. They initially blew us off. We pressed the issue, but still were met with disinterest and no concern. To us, it's yet another thing that proves we were not a party to this and shouldn't be treated as the criminal here. 

Our daughter has had to change all her info at her new bank as a result of this. We feel if USAA had taken any of this more seriously, it wouldn't have happened. 

We are now left with {$2300.00} of Social Security benefits we can't access. a daughter who had to change all her banking info, a bank who purports to be here for and to help military families who has left us out on our own, a {$1000.00} debt we can not pay, still no refrigerator, embarrassment this even happened, and anger & frustration that we've been punished for the simple act moving money from one account we own to another, a thing we and millions of other Americans do every single day. 

We ask you to please help us resolve this issue so that we can access our money and move on from the horrible experience. 

We have the email we were sent from the scammers but we unable to upload it.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation