Consumer complaint received 2022-07-12
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: MD
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
Between the dates of XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, five deposits were made in the amount of {$5000.00} each, leaving my account with a XXXX surplus. I called USAA notifying them that these were not done by me or my mother. The representative looked through the accounts and explained that what they were looking at was very typical of some type of criminal activity. They hung up with the representative and assumed this would be taken care of as USAA has always done right by my mother. She was reassured that none of her other individual accounts through USAA were linked to this shared account that had been hacked. From XXXX daily deposits and withdrawals were made again in the increments of XXXX, this time leaving a balance of XXXX as of XX/XX/XXXX. From XXXX, XXXX withdrawals were made in XXXX increments leaving the account with a balance of XXXX as of XX/XX/XXXX. 
Our issue is that at no time were we notified by email or phone of these transactions, nor was this account flagged by anyone in the banking department as suspicious. This should have been done on the when the initial call was made to USAA making them aware of unauthorized activity on the account. On XX/XX/XXXX a closing transfer credit of XXXX was issued to this account, no email or phone call was given again in regards to this deposit, nor are we sure of where that came from. On XXXX {$13000.00} was depleted from my moms savings and {$7400.00} was depleted from her checking by USAA and applied to this shared account. Again no notification was given from USAA. 
On XX/XX/XXXX my mom, while on vacation, tried to take money out of her account, and was denied access as she was showing a balance of XXXX. When she pulled up her account she saw that both her savings and checking were totally depleted. She immediately called USAA to inquire about this and after 2 hours of being on the phone she was able to close the shared account. Sadly, the line was disconnected before they could finish figuring out how she will regain her money that USAA used to cover the fraudulent transactions. 
Today, XX/XX/XXXX, I have spent over 3 hours on the phone speaking to 3 different people trying to determine what needs to be done about this account. All I have been told is that these were not internal transfers, and that my moms accounts were depleted because USAA exercised their right to terminate the account based on the depository agreement that was signed. 
We do understand that USAA has the right to the funds if the accounts were determined to not be fraudulent. However, we do have some concerns with the handling of this situation after USAA was notified by my family of the suspicious activity. These are the concerns we have and no one has been able to answer them : 1. How does someone withdrawal XXXX in one day without notifying the account holders after the account was supposedly flagged by USAA as suspicious? 
2. We were reassured by a USAA representative that my mothers accounts were not comprised with this fraudulent activity, yet they were depleted to cover USAA 's negligence in the handling of the comprised account. Why was this account not closed when the initial call was made? Why did it take the account reaching a XXXX balance for that to happen? How is this account not insured by the FDIC? Why was my moms account depleted with no explanation given. 
3. No investigation has been done to our knowledge. We have not been given any guidance in terms of how to file a grievance with the account and no attempt has been made to rectify this situation at all on USAAs part. 


I have also sent an email to XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX stating this very complaint and asked that it be handled by someone other than the representatives we were talking to in the fraud department. We still have not heard from anyone from USAA.

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