Consumer complaint received 2022-03-09
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: WA
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:
XX/XX/XXXX : I receive a call from the USAA fraud department regarding a run of suspicious transactions totaling almost {$800.00}. I report the purchases are not mine and I report my card in my possession. The purchases are refunded and replacement cards are mailed out. No further investigation is conducted on my end. I concluded my card had been cloned since the card was still in my possession. 

XX/XX/XXXX : Nearly three months after the incident, my wife receives a call from a USAA fraud investigator. Given the time that has elapsed, she is confused about the call and suspects it is a spam call. She states her card is in her possession, not realizing the investigator is talking about the card that was replaced nearly three months ago. I speak to the investigator separately and he tells me he needs to deny this claim because the transactions were " chip-present '' transactions and we had both reported the cards in our possession. I tell the investigator this is news to me to and that I need a little more time to talk to my wife and figure out what happened. He tells me he needs to close the case but I can call USAA and speak to member services if anything new is discovered once I retrace my steps that day nearly three months prior. He advises me I can also request video footage from the day of the incident, however, since almost 3 months had passed since the time I reported the fraud, and the day the investigators called me to deny the claim, video footage was no longer available. 

Upon speaking to my wife, we first realize these charges were to her physical card, not mine, despite the fact that USAA called me back in XXXX to ask about the suspicious activity and never spoke to her and asked if the card was in her possession. We retraced her steps that day and found she was at her office in XXXX XXXX most of the day. It would have been possible to lose it there. Again, nobody from USAA directly asked her if she had the card in her possession at the time the fraud claim was submitted, despite using it as a basis to deny the claim. 

The fraud investigator should have offered more time to gather details from an incident that occurred nearly three months prior to his call. Instead, he said we could take or time to figure out what happened and then contact USAA again. However, this has proven impossible. I have tried to contact USAA about this claim 5 times since XXXX. Despite spending several hours on the phone with USAA, there is nothing else they can do for me at this time, despite our conclusion that my wife did not have the card in her possession at the time of the fraudulent charges. Her card was stolen on that day and she never realized it was missing because USAA called me about the suspicious activity when they should have called her because the charges were on her card.

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