Consumer complaint received 2023-07-15
Company: FISERV INC.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Refund anticipation check
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
Money Network Financial , LLC, is in charge of the management and distribution of the MCTR payment to California residents. It was distributed as a prepaid debit card and was received by me in the Winter of XXXX. Because I was unaware of what it was at the time, I left the envelope in my office and told myself I would get around to it, which I did in XXXX. 

On XXXX XXXX XXXX I called the number listed in the envelope to activate my account to try to access the {$350.00} that was supposed to be part of my Middle Class Tax Refund. On that day, the person who I spoke to said that there was no money on my account, someone had already setup a pin, which I did not know, and that there were no funds in the account. The funds had been transferred out without my knowledge. She went over the transactions, which demonstrate a clear pattern of fraud. They are listed here. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX  - attempt to use at XXXX, denied XXXX XXXX XXXX  - attempt to use at XXXX multiple times, all denied XXXX XXXX XXXX - attempt to use at XXXX XXXX, denied XX/XX/XXXX - attempt to transfer funds to XXXX, denied XXXX XXXX XXXX  - funds were successfully transferred to a XXXX account for {$350.00} ( the entirety of the funds ) to an account belonging to XXXX XXXX, affiliated with a phone number XXXX. This is a toll-free number which I have no association with. Furthermore, I have no association with XXXX XXXX and have never heard of this name. 

All of this occurred before I had even tried to active the card myself on XXXX XXXX XXXX 

On that date, I filed a fraud report verbally over the phone while discussing the above. The representatives at Money Network stated that it would take 45-90 days and did not say or bring up that a written notice was required or recommended. At that time, I did not know about 12 CFR Part 1005 ( Regulation E ), specifically the section on " Procedures for Resolving Errors. '' Based on these laws, they are required to investigate within 10 business days and if needing an extension to 45 days, are to " Provisionally credits the consumer 's account in the amount of the alleged error ( including interest where applicable ) within 10 business days of receiving the error notice. If the financial institution has a reasonable basis for believing that an unauthorized electronic fund transfer has occurred and the institution has satisfied the requirements of 1005.6 ( a ), the institution may withhold a maximum of {$50.00} from the amount credited. '' Neither of these things were accomplished. Their investigation took 90 days and I never received a provisional credit. 

Furthermore, the results of this investigation are to be made available to the consumer in a written explanation : " Written explanation. The institution 's report of the results of its investigation shall include a written explanation of the institution 's findings and shall note the consumer 's right to request the documents that the institution relied on in making its determination. Upon request, the institution shall promptly provide copies of the documents. '' This was not granted to me as well. I received no information regarding when the investigation was completed and what the results were. I had to callback multiple times, each time taking 30 minutes of time ( most of which were spent on hold ). Finally, on XXXX, after calling their customer service line, they stated that the claim was denied because there was electronic authorization on the transaction. They instructed that I can dispute this in writing by submitting a form ( attached ) to their dispute email, which I completed on XXXX 

Today, on XX/XX/XXXX, I called back request an update on the dispute and investigation as it had been more than 10 business days. Once again, they had not completed their investigation and I did not receive any provisional credits. On the phone today, I was escalated to a supervisor twice. The first time, they hung up on me in the middle of the conversation without a call back, wasting nearly and hour of my time. I had to call back, get placed on hold again, in order to get escalated again to another supervisor. I discussed with this supervisor at length the rights granted to me by 12 CFR Part 1005, which this representative completely dismissed. She stated that per their policy, they take 45-90 days to conduct an investigation or a dispute. This is clearly not the timeline established by federal protection for consumers. 

Furthermore, I believe their investigation to be inadequate. The results of that investigation only yielded that the transaction was electronically authorized. Obviously, this must have been the case for the transaction to go through. The history of multiple failed transactions several days before, and the transaction to a XXXX account which has no association to me clearly demonstrates a pattern of failed fraud, followed by once successful fraudulent transaction. 

This entire process has taken hours of my time throughout the course of months. It has been very frustrating not having my concerns addressed just to get my stolen money re-credited. I have had to pay taxes on these funds, which has resulted in additional losses. The representatives are not helpful and only state and repeat what their company policy is, which is not helpful and not aligned with federal protection guidelines and laws. 

I have documented all the events above. If call records are needed, I can obtain them from my cell phone carrier.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation