Consumer complaint received 2018-05-02
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I hired attorney XXXX XXXX XXXX to represent me in an appeals case. The cost for this service was {$13000.00} and was paid using my USAA Visa credit card. The attorney never completed the contracted work, and then did not file the appeal by the deadline. I asked the attorney for a refund on XX/XX/XXXX, but he refused a refund and then quit. 
Naturally, I contacted USAA about the issue and USAA filed a charge back on my behalf based on " services not rendered ''. The attorney responded to this charge back claiming to have completed some measure of service. He stated I was not satisfied with the work, but it was work nonetheless. In the attorney 's claim he submitted time sheets that displayed he had completed {$17000.00} worth of services. I responded to USAA asserting that the time sheets did not make any sense. I provided email correspondence between the attorney and myself to prove that the time sheets were not accurate and displayed dates / times that were a complete forgery. USAA decided to close the dispute in favor of the attorney. USAA 's response to me, via employee XXXX XXXX, was that I shouldn't had filed the dispute as " services not rendered '' but rather as " services not described. This was extremely disheartening because the only reason the dispute was filed as " services not rendered '' was based on USAA 's recommendation and action. I was then advised, by USAA, to pursue civil recourse. 
Following my contact with USAA, I filed a complaint with the Washington D.C. Bar association concerning a long list of malpractice behavior committed by the attorney. The bar association began to conduct its own investigation that is still ongoing as of XX/XX/XXXX. During this investigation, the actual time sheets, kept by the attorney, were uncovered and provided to me. I was right, the time sheets provided to USAA were a complete forgery. The time sheets given to USAA did not have a few mistakes where one or two lines of information or billable time were different, but rather every single line was completely different from those uncovered by the bar association. The time sheets the bar association acquired displayed less than 4.5 hours of billable work. The attorney had purposefully submitted a forgery to USAA with the intent of stealing {$13000.00} from my account. 
I contacted USAA through XXXX XXXX beginning on approx. XX/XX/XXXX. After about 5 weeks of leaving messages I was finally contacted by XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX claiming to work for USAA 's CEO office. I explained the situation to both of them, describing the forgery of documents used in the dispute case, the theft, and fraud. I was then asked to submit the evidence that I had regarding this issue. I submitted a letter reiterating the course of events that had occurred, and also the time sheets uncovered by the Washington D.C. Bar association. For good measure, I also resubmitted the documentation from the original dispute so the evidence could be compared. Within 48 hours, I received a call back from XXXX XXXX. She informed me that the case will remain closed, that USAA will take no action, and that I would need to pursue relief via civil means. I asked to speak with the person who made this decision, and XXXX XXXX informed me that they will not be speaking with me. I then asked to speak with one of the CEO 's that she works for, and she told me that she will not allow me to speak with one of them either. 
Let me be extremely clear, this is NOT a civil issue. There is ZERO ambiguity about this. The laws governing the attorney in Washington D.C. are as follows : theft, fraud in the first degree, and forgery governed by District of Columbia Codes : Chapter 32, 223211 Theft, 223221 Fraud, and 223241 Forgery. This is written in black and white and is considered criminal behavior, NOT civil. All 50 States in the United States carry some criminal penalty for this type of felony that range from 3 - 5 years in prison. There are only two reasons that USAA would permit this type of bank fraud against one of its members : One, USAA has something to gain from not stopping it and is conspiring with the criminal attorney ( this seems unlikely ) ; or two, USAA just doesn't care if they facilitated the theft of {$13000.00} from one of their member 's accounts because it does not affect their company. After all, I am the one whose money was stolen, not USAA. So why should they care? The fact that they have the evidence of the fraud right in front of them and are choosing not to act on what is clearly a crime should be addressed immediately.

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