Consumer complaint received 2022-08-07
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: TX
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
At XX/XX/2022 ; I received a payment via XXXX for US {$3400.00} from a person I was doing trading with on XXXX ( an stranger ) ; the payment came to my account from a third party account, it didn't belong to the person I was doing trading with but I wasn't aware of that ; so, I received the funds and just did deliver the crypto ( USDT ) on XXXX portal. 

A few hours later, Bank of America sent a notification to me indicating that I had an amount of {$3400.00} on hold due to fraud investigation ; and then I was shocked ; and I couldn't call the bank because it was late night when I received the notification. 

I checked in XXXX and saw that there was a way of scam through XXXX, with third party payments ; and I freaked out. 

Next day morning I called the bank, and they told me that the payment I received was sent from a compromised account ( someone got illegally on the Bank of America portal account of some lady, and stole the money by sending it to me as the payment that I mentioned ) ; so, my first question to the bank associate was " how could I be responsible for bank 's security breaches? " ; I have been a customer for 7 years with any problem, I received my salary in that account for the past 4 years, and use my debit card internationally ; always in a legit manner. 

The associate told me the money wasn't at risk, that it was just an investigation, and the bank was going to release the " on-hold '' in a few days ; a lie, because after 6 days, the bank simply debited the money from my account, leaving me with the lost, tagging me indirectly as a scammer, because when I called again, the associate told me plainly and simple " the money was stolen from the other customer 's account '', so, " wasn't really my money? ", " how's is it possible the bank protected the other customer, and left me unprotected and even insinuating that I had anything to do with the scam in the first place ; leaving the real scammer go away with it, and just telling me that I had to use XXXX with friends and family only, not with strangers. 

Well, after a few days I decided to just pass over it and assume the lost, trying to protect myself from the scammers by being more suspicious when dealing with strangers and money. 

Until yesterday, when I tried to get into my account on Bank of America portal, and find out that I wasn't able to anymore ; I called the bank, and the associate told me that my accounts were in status " pending to close '', without any reason, just because the bank did it as a " business decision ''. 

So, I'm thinking the bank was just waiting for me to have a positive balance in my accounts to close them ; because with the on-hold debit my balance went to - {$3100.00} dollars, I really should just have left the account in negative and forget about it, but as I said, I need the account because I receive my salary there, well, used to receive it.. 

So, my complaint is about the bank 's bad behavior, by leaving me on my own when it should have protected me as any other of their legit customers. I know that my money is lost, and my accounts as well. But I hope this complaint helps to avoid other people to have this kind of troubles with this bank in the future. 

Thank you.

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 monetary relief