Consumer complaint received 2019-08-15
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: OR
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
My husband and I are American citizens who live overseas. We were looking for a summer sublet in XXXX in XX/XX/XXXXbecause my husband got a summer job here and so that our XXXX  children can become more acquainted with American society. XXXX rentals were very expensive for a family of XXXX, so we looked on XXXX and found a sublet in XXXX XXXX. It was at a good price and good location, so we were hooked. The guy who wrote back identified himself as XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) and claimed to be a certified property manager and gave us this website as his : XXXX XXXX XXXX. It looked professional, we were very busy with work and we didn't want to lose what we thought was a good deal, especially after he said other parties were interested, so we agreed to sublet the unit in XXXX XXXX, close to XXXX and transferred {$1000.00}, {$1000.00}, {$1000.00} and {$220.00} on XX/XX/2019 totaling {$3200.00} to this account, which he said belonged to the unit owner : Account Name : XXXX XXXX Bank : XXXX Account Number : XXXX Routing Number : XXXX Swift Code : XXXX Bank Address : XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, MI XXXX XXXX said he had received the funds and would have someone meet us at the sublet and let us in on the day we arrived, but we learned from the property owner after arriving at the address given, that it's actually an XXXX  used by XXXX for the scam and the property owner had no idea this was going on. 

The total amount transferred was {$3200.00}. But this guy must have scammed more people than us. He seems to have multiple bank accounts, so the amount he has stolen could be much higher than what he got from us. He also may have committed identity theft by using fake names to list on XXXX on his website and for the XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX  accounts he uses. 

Besides the obvious complaint against XXXX and his company if it exists, these are our complaints about Bank of America and XXXX XXXX : -- Despite the urgency of the matter and the potential for stopping payment on the wire transfers, at least one of which was reflected on our online banking account as still being processed on XX/XX/XXXX, Saturday, both Bank of America and XXXX XXXX  told us to talk to their fraud department on the following Monday. 

-- So far, neither bank has helped us. BofA is not considering this a fraud case because it said we transferred the money. After repeated visits to bank branches and phone calls to BofAs fraud department, the Money Moving Department finally agreed more than two weeks after we notified them on XX/XX/XXXX of the scam, to submit a claim for us to get the money back from XXXX. 

But while their Move Money Department staff told us this week ( XXXX XXXX ) that our case is still under investigation, we received a letter dated XX/XX/2019 from BofAs Dispute Resolution Services, Electronic Claims Services, in the mail today saying it has completed its investigation and since its records indicate that the bank initiated the transfers in accordance with our instructions, we should contact the other party directly for further assistance. The other party is a con man/scam artist who is not answering his phone and is unreachable. 

XXXX meanwhile told us they cant help because were not their customers and should go through BofA, which should file a claim with XXXX on this matter. We dont know what to think. 

We are extremely worried the fraudster XXXX and his cohorts may move money out of all their accounts, if they havent done so already. 

We would like our bank BofA, in which Ive put most of my money since I opened the account more than 30 years ago as a college student and with which I have had two mortgages, to at least find out for us if the money is still there in the XXXX account holder/con mans account, and ask XXXX to help us get the money back. Its obviously a scam. We have emails and other evidence to prove it. 

Instead of shoving us to each other, both banks should take active measures to protect customers and people in general from scams and take punitive action against their customers who are scamming people. We've since heard a lot of people has fallen for such scams. 

Please help us. We have nowhere else to turn.

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