Consumer complaint received 2023-01-13
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: AZ
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Banking errors

Complaint:
Below is a letter outlining what transpired and the letter was sent to Bank of America. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX - No Case Number Given Claim Amount XXXX XXXX Attn : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX On XXXX XXXX XXXX, I received funds into my checking account ending in XXXX from XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX of XXXX XXXX for a home remodel project. The deposit was {$10000.00}. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a Bank of America email stating that a person by the name of XXXX XXXX was transferring {$9400.00} from my checking account. 

The loan originally was for a remodel project in my home, and at this time, 2 days later, I was confused as to whether or not a construction company was able to place a hold on the money or take back a certain amount of funds until the project is complete. 

However, I was certain that I did not authorize anyone to remove that type of money from my account. I called Bank of America on XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX XXXX and was on the phone for 19 minutes. I spoke with a young lady on the phone and explain to her the situation and that I did not authorize anyone to withdraw money. 

She had placed me on hold two or three times and then finally came back and said she thought that the person withdrawing the money was the same person that had placed the money in the account. At this point, I thought possibly she is right and it was too late Friday afternoon, XXXX to XXXXXXXX XXXX, on a holiday weekend, to call the bank and find out if they were possibly holding back that amount of money for a portion of the project. The loan application was completed through acornfinancial.com which was the link sent to me by the construction company that had planned on doing the job. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXXXXXX XXXX, I called XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXn XXXX XXXX and spoke to XXXX, ID number XXXX. XXXX said they had dispersed the loan monies on XX/XX/XXXX and had not taken any monies back. He said they do not have a XXXX XXXX that works for XXXX XXXX XXXX 

On XXXX XXXX XXXX at XXXXXXXX XXXX, I contacted XXXX XXXX of Arizona XXXX XXXX who is the person who gave me the bid and link to apply for the construction loan. He had no idea about any monies being withdrawn. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX AM I spoke to XXXX in the office of Arizona XXXX XXXX, she had no idea what had happened. She stated she does not have any of my banking information, nor does she have access to my account. She was baffled as to what could have happened. 

At this point, I realized that my account has been defrauded. The young lady that told me on XX/XX/XXXX, that it was possibly the same person who put the money in, was taking it out, was completely false. 

I again contacted Bank of America on XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX XXXX and spoke with XXXX. I started a fraud claim number, XXXX XXXX. Why was there no attempt by the fraud section to place a STOP PAYMENT on the transfer at that time? The money did not fund until the following day. 

XXXX had advised me that Monday was a banking holiday and that they put a freeze on my account and no monies would be able to be taken out of it. She suggested I call Tuesday morning XX/XX/XXXX and open a new bank account. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, at approximately XXXX XXXX, I once again contacted Bank of America and opened a new checking account. This transaction was made over the phone. 

On the evening of XX/XX/XXXX, at approximately XXXX XXXX, I went home and began to attempt to load in creditors for my bill pay. I clicked on the bill pay icon and a box popped up on the screen that said I was not authorized to go into bill pay. It provided a phone number to call. I called that number and spoke with a lady who identified herself with Bank of America. She said that was standard procedure when you have a fraudulent account activity. 
She placed me on hold stating that she could take care of the issue. I waited on hold for a minute or two, she then came back and told me that she had fixed the issue and it should be taken care of in the next couple hours, if not by tomorrow morning for certain. 

No less than 30 seconds after I hung up with the lady who fixed the bill pay issue, I received an additional email from Bank of America saying that another person has been placed on the account to transfer monies out. ( See attached photo of screenshot ) Immediately panicking, not knowing if somebody had hacked into the system while I was on the phone with a Bank of America employee, I once again called the bank and spoke to a gentleman who was apparently in the fraud department. I explained to him the circumstances that I had called the number on the screen and spoke with a lady who stated she was going to fix my bill pay issue. Within seconds of hanging up from her, I was alerted by Bank of America that someone had been added to my account to transfer money out. 

The gentleman I spoke to, assured me the email was most likely a spoof email, and we would change my password and that should solve the entire problem. Subsequently, we changed my password again and he reassured me it was a spoof email. I even explained to him that I put my cursor over who it came from, bankofamerica.com. He was certain that it was a spoof email, and not to access it. 

The following morning on XX/XX/XXXX, approximately XXXXXXXX XXXX, I received another email from Bank of America saying that XXXX XXXX was requesting approximately {$8800.00} out of my account. Now, realizing that it was not a spoof email, and the employee was ill-informed, I immediately called the bank once again. 

This time I spoke to a lady in the fraud department who was flabbergasted at the situation I was in. She suggested that possibly my cell phone and or my laptop might be hacked. I told her that I already did a reset on my computer, ran a malware and virus check, and the computer came back clear. I also did a reset on my phone. 

She and I then changed my username and password. Ive had no issues since. The second attempt to withdraw money from my account was apparently canceled by the bank during the time I was waiting on the phone to speak with the last fraud lady. Thankfully that one did not go through. However, the first fraudulent transaction was started on the XX/XX/XXXX when I spoke to Bank of America employees and was transferred out on the XXXX. Had I not been misled that it was possibly the same person who put the money in that was taking it out, I could have placed a stop payment on it at that time. Even on XX/XX/XXXX, had the people I spoke with placed a stop payment on it, the transfer would never have gone through. 

According to the records it was not completed until XX/XX/XXXX. By that time, I had already filed a claim with the bank and a stop payment should have been placed on the monies, but they got transferred to XXXX XXXX at XXXX XXXX 

After getting off the phone with XXXX, I began looking around on my browser at my Bank of America account, and I discovered to my surprise that both XXXX and XXXX had inserted themselves into my account as transferees. I had no idea that was even listed inside of my banking app. Had I known that I would have done something about it myself. The bigger surprise is that during all this amount of time that I spent on the phone with multiple bank employees, no one ever mentioned that to me. 

So now, after I discovered two female names are as listed as transferees on my account, I once again called the bank and spoke to a lady and asked her if I should delete them off of my account or will it affect my fraud case. She told me it would be perfectly fine to delete the two people out of my account as the fraud division would know where all that information was kept. Subsequently, Ive come to learn that is not true either. Attached to this letter are screenshots of my bank account and the two names of the ladies that somehow inserted themselves into my account.

I am still not certain how these individuals were able to insert themselves into my checking account. Not once, but twice, and on both old and new accounts. What is almost as discerning as that is that none of the bank employees, I spoke to on the phone on multiple occasions were able to stop the transaction or place a stop hold of some sort to prevent the first transaction from occurring. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received an email stating that my fraud claim had been rejected. Based on the information above of what transpired I was a little surprised by that. I once again contacted Bank of America by the phone and spoke to a lady who gave me the information on digital claim resolutions. 

Please see the attached photocopies of pictures of the screen shots of the fraudulent transfers. The information is still inside of the account area under transfers processed. 

I am under the impression that you do have access to the recorded phone contacts I had with Bank of America on all the occasions I called. 

Thank you for your consideration in this matter. 



XXXX XXXX

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 explanation