Consumer complaint received 2023-12-16
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MN
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
We live in the XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX in Minnesota. My family was a victim of a scam. My wife was brainwashed for XXXX weeks and told to send all our savings to an unknown account. It was a huge loss for our family with XXXX XXXX kids. We reported to our bank a few hours after the transaction ( XX/XX/XXXX ) and the bank told me after 20 days that the funds can not be recovered. The main reason I would like to file this report is that the current Standard Operating Procedure ( XXXX ) for dealing with scam crimes between banks leaves time for the criminals to exploit vulnerabilities and execute their fraudulent activities with calculated precision. XXXX main factors from my case : ( 1 ) the Scam Victim Acknowledgment document needs more than 24 hours to get to the victim via email ( if using regular mail, it will take more than 48 hours ). The receiving bank needs to receive this signed acknowledgement document to freeze the recipients account. ( 2 ) XX/XX/XXXX was XXXX, many people working in the banks were out for the holiday. Criminals may use this holiday window plus weekends and the reaction time of the XXXX banks to successfully complete crimes. I hope some action can be taken to prevent something like this from happening to other victims of scam. 

Here is what happened to my family. On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX received a few calls from XXXX customer service ( It was a part of the scam ). The agent was a XXXX speaking person ( our family is originally from XXXX ) saying that XXXX XXXX personal information was stolen. Another person in XXXX used her information to apply for a credit card and had purchased a lot of things, some of them were with a XXXX payment plan. My wife should contact a local police department in XXXX. It was in XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX. My wife was suspicious but still wanted to make sure. She googled the phone number of that police department and called to report the XXXX issue. The police officer over there ( also a scam, they were able to transfer calls from my wifes phone to their number. That is, you think you called the police department, but your phone call was transferred to another number ) told her that she was involved in an international child trafficking case ( did not care anything about the XXXX case ). Her information had been used in XXXX bank and the XXXX XXXX Police XXXX had been investigating this case. My wife was XXXX of the suspects that they had been secretly following. They also told my wife our familys travel records, even websites we visited in the past year. My wife started to believe this case was real. All of sudden, another police officer made a loud announcement in the background that they needed to arrest my wife immediately. My wife was terrified and deeply believed that her personal information was stolen and used in this child trafficking case. She agreed to cooperate with the investigation and agreed to keep this secret without telling anyone including myself ( her husband ). Then for about 3 weeks, she reported her daily activities, sent photos of her, facetimed with the police officers. My wife still has the chat history and the XXXX ( for facetime ). They usually chat with the web camera off, just occasionally used the camera to show themselves in an office with uniforms, but they all wore face masks. They asked my wife to report our savings in our bank as well as XXXX. A XXXX investigator expressed that if my wife followed what was told, he could help my wife to proof that she was not related to this child trafficking case. On XX/XX/XXXX, they showed an arrest warrant to my wife, and she was totally terrified. They asked my wife to transfer all the money in our bank account to a XXXX bank account with a New Jersey address, saying this person was an undercover detective and this account was associated with the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) of XXXX XXXX. They needed to make sure these funds were not related to the child trafficking case. My wife went to a Bank of America and wired $ XXXX to the XXXX account between XXXX and XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. 
When I came home from work that day at about XXXX, my wife cried and told me the whole story. I was totally shocked, and my brain was empty. I told her that it was a scam. She still believed by doing this she would not be arrested and still being able to be with me and the kids. She still believed in after 2 weeks XXXX will return our funds. After helping the kids with dinner, I called Bank of America ( BOA ) to report this issue and asked for the cancellation of this transaction. It was XXXX. The bank agent told me that they can not stop the transaction, but a recall request was sent. I will receive and sign a scam victim acknowledgement document, so that BOA can send to XXXX to recover the funds. The BOA agent also told me that the funds may come back to my account soon because a recall was sent, sounded like they have confidence that they can recall the funds ( I called BOA a few times to get updates about this case, all but the last one told me that they should be able to do so. The last one only said they could not recover your fund and will close this request ). I also called the police department in my town. An officer documented this case and gave me the case number and told me to contact her the next day for any updates. The officer was concerning whether there was any loss. I felt like she was also optimistic about getting the funds back in a day or two. However, there are two factors here as I mentioned in the beginning of this report : ( 1 ) the Scam Victim Acknowledgment document needs more than 24 hours to get to the victim via email ( if using regular mail, it will take more than 48 hours ). ( 2 ) XX/XX/XXXX was XXXX. BOA might not send the signed Scam victim acknowledgement document to XXXX that day ; if sent, XXXX bank might not process the Scam victim acknowledgement document right away. In addition, many people working in the banks may be out of the office for the holiday. Moreover, there was a weekend one day after the XXXX holiday, which may further delay the processing in the bank. This gives time for the criminal to successfully complete the crime. 

Here is the timeline of my case : XX/XX/XXXX XXXX : My wife went to BOA to transfer the funds from our account to the fraudsters account. 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX : I reported to BOA XXXX local police, FBI XXXX federal trade commission ( FTC ). I also called the police in XXXX XXXX. They told me that they wont do anything until the local police from MN contacts them. I called XXXX customer service, they said they wont do anything unless law enforcement interacts with their legal team. 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX : We received a message from BOA that our transaction was debited to the fraudsters account. 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX : I received the Scam Victim Acknowledgement form from BOA in the email XX/XX/XXXX ( XXXX XXXX ) XXXX : I signed and emailed the Scam Victim Acknowledgement form back to BOA. I called the fraud department XXXX XXXX bank. I was told that they could not help me over the phone ; I had to visit a local bank branch and talk to an agent on XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX XXXX : I went to a local XXXX bank near my house. The bank agent who worked there contacted the fraud department and told me that as soon as they received the acknowledgement document from BOA, they will freeze the recipients account. I also called BOA and confirmed that they had received the signed Acknowledgement document and sent it to XXXX. 
XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, I called BOA on these days and was told no updates. One agent also told me that the funds needed time to show on the recipients account and on XXXX day, the recipient can not do anything through the bank because of the holiday. So it was highly possible to recover the funds. 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX : My wife and I went to XXXX bank again to get some updates. Like last time, they couldnt disclose customer information but told us that the fraudsters account has been frozen since XX/XX/XXXX ( did not disclose what time ). 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX. I received an email from BOA with a document saying the fund recovery was not successful. 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX. I called BOA and was told that the recovery was not successful because there was no fund in that account. 
XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX I called the local police department and the officer who was in charge of my case was out. 
XX/XX/XXXX : I reported to the same officer again about the loss. It seems like this time my case was taken more seriously and this case will be sent over for investigation. 
I dont have any information from BOA XXXX XXXX regarding when the funds were moved from the fraudsters account. From this timeline, it tells me that the funds were already gone between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, or even on late XX/XX/XXXX. 

This whole process makes me feel quite helpless and upset. I admit that the starting point was my wife being brainwashed and authorizing the transaction. After reporting this scam, both BOA and the police XXXX gave me the impression that the funds should be able to recover. Not a big deal. However, it failed eventually. I feel that at several points the XXXX banks could prevent this from happening. It takes too long for BOA to send out the scam victim acknowledgement document for the victim to sign and send to the receiving bank. When there is a scam, there is no quick response mechanism between banks, e.g., temporarily freeze a susceptible account and give time for investigation. It also took a long time for XXXX bank to inform BOA about the failure to recover the funds. After 20 days, the police wont be able to react to this crime quickly. I am not sure whether there is an investigation within the XXXX bank regarding whether the fraudster uses fake or stolen identification for this account. Because of this delay, law enforcement will miss the opportunities to quickly identify the fraudster and protect more people from scams. 
Thanks.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation