Consumer complaint received 2023-12-08
Company: Chime Financial Inc
State: NJ
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2023 I sent {$200.00} to XXXX XXXX via chime ( pay anyone ). She told me her chime tag was XXXX which came right up when I typed it in so I assumed i had the right account and sent her {$200.00}. A couple minutes passed and at that time she told me she hasnt received the funds yet. I asked her to pull up her account information so I could verify that I sent the money to the correct account and when she pulled up the info for me, I saw her chime tag was XXXX which immediately seemed suspicious to me because she absolutely DID NOT tell me there was a number XXXX after her name the first time she gave me the information. I immediately became suspicious that she was trying to deceive me into paying her twice. I asked her if she had XXXX accounts because it seemed odd that she neglected to mention the number XXXX at the end of her chime tag the first time she gave it to me. She insisted that she had not received the money and that she only had XXXX account. She requested that I try to send the money again. Still feeling like I was being deceived, I decided to do a transfer of XXXX dollars just to confirm she wasnt giving me another ghost account like she had done originally. She confirmed that she did get the XXXX dollars but at that point she asked if I could just give her the XXXX in cash so she didnt have to walk to an ATM. At that point, with much hesitation I gave her XXXX in cash and promptly contacted chimes customer service to have the original XXXX dollar transfer reversed because I sent it to someone else with the same name by mistake. Chime told me there is no way to reverse a transfer and I should be more careful when transferring money in the future. Chimes customer service then told me the only way to get the original XXXX dollars back is to send a request explaining what happened and ask for the money back. I laughed when they suggested that and told them that chime really needs to get it together because I was just robbed and not only did they not care at all but they really need to implement some sort of safety net to protect against something like this from happening more frequently. I then asked to speak with a manager about filing a dispute. They said a manager isnt necessary to file a dispute and the person I had on the phone would be happy to help me dispute the transfer. I explained the entire situation to the person I had on the phone and I was told I would have an answer in a few days. It wasnt more than an hour after I filed the dispute that I got a response from chime. The response simply stated that the dispute is now closed because no error occurred. I called back and explained the situation again and expressed how unsatisfied I was with their dispute process and requested to speak with a manager. I was placed on hold while they got a manager on the phone. I was on hold for at least 20 minutes when I heard a click, the hold music stopped and realized I was just hung up on. I called back and requested to speak with a manager again. The same thing happened. I was placed on hold for over XXXX minutes and then hung up on. At that point I just assumed I was never getting the XXXX dollars back and moved on with life like usual. Recently, I was explaining what happened to a friend and he suggested I reach out to CFPB and see if there is anything that CFPB can do to help me out.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation