Consumer complaint received 2021-10-16
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: MD
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Traveler's check or cashier's check
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX  we were victims of Mail Check Fraud. An outside party convince me that I received a job sent me a check for initial equipment. I cash that check and immediately was harassed and stated was ask to send the money back via cashier check. My husband realize that day I was victim of a scam. And we called USAA. They had not cut and sent the check yet. And we request that they do not send the check or cut the checks. They stated they will initiate a fraud investigation, and attempt to cancel the check and close the bank account also to stop attempt at pulling the funds. They stated they would notified regarding the fraud investigation and the status of the check. On XXXX and in-service email was sent that no fraud had occurred and not action will be taken. I did not see this internal message until XX/XX/XXXX. Not other attempts by USAA were taken to notified us. The cashier check were not stopped and were sent. On XX/XX/XXXX the scammer initial checked bonus, causing the account to be negative for XXXX dollars. On XX/XX/XXXX we received a letter from USAA notified us we had X numbers of days to resolved the negative account and the letter was our final warning. We called USAA who apologized for the letter. And stated they could not change the deadline even though the letter was our 1st notifications, as the account were closed and we were unable to view the accounts status and were awaiting communication on the status of the fraud ( we still did not see the internal message ). USAA stated they will reopen the fraud investigation and call us before the deadline based on the requirements. They did not. XX/XX/XXXX we call 24 hours before the deadline, to find out fraud did not contact us, but ended it second investigation, that my account was going to put in collection status. We were transfer to collection, to pay the off the negative amount. My husband, moved money in our joint account to pay the debt. But was not allowed to transfer money into the negative account due to it being closed in attempt to stop the initial scam ( that the USAA fraud team found not be fraudulent ). We were told we would have to pay wiring fees to pay off the debt, cause by the scam and the actions USAA directed us to do ( closing the account ). While on the phone with Collection agent, they state instructions, while my husband requesting more details on previous instructions and miss clear details need to write a proper wire fund ( we discover this happen after investigation by USAA executive customer support team ). This cause the cashier check to pay off the debt to invalid and we have to wait 90 days before being able to pay off the account. And pay additional fees for the second payment. In total we not refunded on fee charge of 20 dollars. Have spent over 300 minutes on hold and phone calls with USAA customer support and collections. USAA did no attempt to contact USPS to stop cashier check to be sent to scammer. Did not notified the Bank used by the Scammer to warn them of scammer using them for fraud. They did not provide any details to federal agency or local law enforcement that check was being sent to. They did not keep us inform of their investigation, to allows us to properly take these actions ourselves.

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