Consumer complaint received 2020-08-17
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: TX
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I became exposed to a significant scam by several apparently related parties masterminded by an organization calling itself XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX with a XXXX XXXX address and fancy web site. This resulted in : eight withdrawal transfers by Wire Out Service, totaling {$86000.00} and four transfers by Online  Banking using Bank of Americas XXXX process totaling {$23000.00}, all to multiple scam parties, for a total of {$100000.00} cost to my account from these 12 separate transfers, none of which was flagged by Bank of America. Only one of these transfers was under {$3000.00} in value, with five being of value ranging from {$9900.00} to {$24000.00}. 

My complaint with Bank of America is that the Banks systems failed to identify the wire transfer details and the other online transfers as fraudulent and/or as being made to improper organizations, prior to facilitating these transfers. The Bank also failed to identify that such wire and transfer amounts were materially outside of my routine banking operations, and to question these with me before facilitating the transfers, thus denying me the opportunity to stop these fraudulent transfers before they occurred. The Bank also advertises its XXXX process as providing a safe transfer method ; clearly this was not true in my case. 

These Bank failures are directly contrary to the verification commitment the Bank made to its online customers at paragraph 6 of  the Online Banking Service Agreement that controlled my account at the time of these transfers. This is that in order to protect [ me ], XXXX, XXXX and other Network Banks, [ the Bank ] may need additional time [ when effecting a transfer ] to verify [ my ] identity or the identity of the person receiving the money. During this period, and in any other circumstance when we need additional time to verify the transfer details, a hold will be placed on your account for the amount of the transfer ( my emphasis added ). The Bank has now supplemented this procedure with the introduction of additional controls in a revised on-line service agreement that became effective XX/XX/2020. This provides additional security by the introduction of significant value transfer limitations for individual transfers. In my case these values relate directly to the transfers that have caused the fraud on my account, for which only one transfer would have been in accord with these new limits. 

These enhanced controls in the revised Service Agreement provide prima facie evidence that Bank of America was aware that its  management of transfers from its online customer accounts required extreme diligence, that it failed to perform in my case on no less than 12 separate occasions. If the Bank had managed my account per these new standards I would have avoided all but {$1500.00} of the fraud I have experienced.

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