Consumer complaint received 2020-08-03
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem using a debit or ATM card

Complaint:
I'm filing a complaint against Chase Bank for failing to protect customers against authorized push payment fraud. I lost {$27000.00} to a criminal because of Chase 's negligent business practices in refusing to recognize this type of predatory activity as fraud. I transferred money into a fraudsters account because I was being threatened, and Chase refuses to investigate my incident. According to Chase, I signed off on the transfer, therefore its not fraud and I cant claim a refund. They ignored the circumstances I was under and the fact that I was coerced. On XX/XX/2020, a fraudster impersonated an officer from the Georgia Investigations Bureau and claimed my SSN had been compromised. He said there was a warrant out for my arrest because I had over 15 bank accounts opened that were tied to a drug-smuggling ring. If I didn't want to get arrested and have my assets frozen, I had to move money from my Chase checking account to a Chase " government '' account to prove which of the 15 accounts were mine. I got scared as the caller knew a lot of information about me ( e.g. my last 2 addresses, account balances, when I was messaging a coworker from my work laptop ), so I went to a local Chase branch and transferred the  requested $ XXXX. I realized it was a scam the next day when, instead of a federal officer giving me a new SSN, the scammer called again saying I had to repeat the funds transfer process with my XXXX XXXX account. On XX/XX/XXXX, I called Chase to stop the transfer, however, Customer Support explained that it wasn't a transfer but a cash deposit into another account, so the matter had to be resolved at the originating branch. On XX/XX/XXXX, I went back to the branch, but the banker informed me there was nothing he could do because I authorized the transaction, and my best bet was to file a claim to recoup the funds. After being passed around for 5 hours from Customer Care to Fraud to Claims ( and disconnected multiple times ) I finally reached a back-office supervisor who directed me to leave a complaint with the Executive Office. I received a voicemail from the EO on XX/XX/XXXX, so I called back and left messages on XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. When I didnt hear back by late afternoon on XX/XX/XXXX, I called the regular EO number and asked to speak with a representative. She finally called me back and let me explain my situation, to which she said she would see what she could do. On XX/XX/XXXX, she called back and confirmed there was nothing Chase can do because from their perspective, this transaction was NOT fraud and the bank had made no errors. My complaints are : 1. Chase is willfully ignorant - as banking leaders they should've been aware of these scams and taken preventative measures. Instead, they victim-shamed me into believing this was my fault ( commenting this as " an expensive lesson '' ) and did nothing to stop the scammer. I have a police report which considers me a fraud victim ( like hundreds of others ) so I don't understand how this is not fraud. 2. Chase is complicit in these financial crimes by legitimizing this transaction and allowing this fake " government Chase account '' to remain open and possibly scam other Chase customers. Chase didn't want to look at the evidence I had against this account or do research. 3. Chase didn't have controls in place to protect me - Chase knew phishing scams were rampant amid COVID, yet they did nothing to inform customers ( no " beware of scams '' emails sent ). When I deposited money into the scammer 's Chase account, no one  asked me what the money was for or gave me warning signals. The scammer 's account was dormant and with a secondary account, which should have been a suspicious red flag to the bank teller, however, she did not stop me from depositing funds into this account. 4. Chase didn't do proper due diligence or monitoring on this person and allowed him to open an account for malicious purposes.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation