Consumer complaint received 2021-04-12
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NC
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed

Complaint:
Bank of America allowed a 'shell XXXX company, " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX '' ( set up in XX/XX/XXXX, in New York , using stolen identity information ) through XXXX services, to remove a total of {$3000.00} from our personal joint account between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. 
We have been trying to have this money restored since we discovered this in XXXX. At this point my wife and I have spent more than XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX and endless amounts of paperwork, emails, office visits and phone calls to Bank of America XXXX department trying to get our money back. 
A simple search on XXXX will show that this ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) is a fake company. I found out ( eventually, on XX/XX/XXXX ) that this company was blocked by XXXX in early XXXX because it ( M ... .... P Design ) looked suspicious and turned out to be a fraudulent company. 
At the current time ( XX/XX/XXXX ) XXXX  fraud investigators are following up and are trying to prosecute the perpetrators of this scam. Once I was able to track down the fraud department at XXXX they have been exemplary in their service. ( It looks currently as if they will send us a check for the {$3000.00}, hopefully restoring our funds ) Our complaint is against Bank of America and how they, Bank of America has behaved with our hard-earned money. 
My common sense tells me that Bank of America fraud department should be the ones, not only protecting our funds from being stolen by hackers, but also pursuing those hackers. 
All they have done is send us three denials of our request to have our money returned because we supposedly 'authorized XXXX XXXX to remove funds from our account. They have sent us an XXXX agreement that was made using stolen information to set up this fake company. In addition they ignored my wife 's signed declaration that we did NOT authorize anyone to remove funds from our account. ( We do not do any on-line banking with Bank of America XXXX. 
Bank of America did not do due diligence to protect our funds. They also have been 'stone-walling ' our efforts to retrieve our own money. 

I do not understand what the XXXX  department does. Surely they should be the ones investigating this - not us! 
Some person used stolen information ( including my name and our Bank of America bank account number ) to set up a fake company to steal money out of a Bank of America account. Is that not Bank of America 's responsibility? If not, then what is their role in protecting their clients funds? 

We have been customers of Bank of America since XXXX. We have passed a lot of money ( impossible to calculate, but XXXX of thousands of $ ) over the years. We have both bank accounts and several credit cards with Bank of America. We assumed that our funds were safe, secure, guaranteed against fraud and insured with Bank of America. 

I have filed reports with the NYOAG against XXXX XXXX XXXX 
I have filed a police report with our local XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Department. 
I have filed complaints against Bank of America with the XXXX and the Better Business Bureau. 

A further bizarre event happened on last Friday, XX/XX/XXXX. We received a phone call from Bank of America. We were excited because this is the first time anyone from the company has reached out since the fraud took place in XXXX, XXXX. It turns out that it was XXXX XXXX, a Resolution Specialist, from XXXX XXXX, calling about the complaint we filed with Better Business Bureau. We were grateful that she had followed up only a few days after filing the complaint. However, quite quickly our hopes were shattered. This is what happened : XXXX XXXX informed us that she was recording the conversation. We informed her that we were also recording the conversation. ( We have learned at this point that it is important to note everything that is said in these conversations with the Bank ). She then said that she could not continue the conversation because we were recording it.

She said she would hang up and call back, which she did.

Meanwhile, my wife called the Sheriff investigator who has been assisting us to see if it was legal to record a conversation. He said it was. ( Later I checked and found out that in North Carolina it is legal to record yourself talking with someone ). 
When XXXX called back we continued to record the conversation and because she could not be certain that we were not recording it she reiterated her company policy and hung up again. She has sent us her phone contact information but I do not see the point in calling her because she will not " let '' us record the conversation. 
This is the most peculiar one-sided way of resolving an issue that I have ever heard of! 

This last experience with Bank of America has given us even less confidence in them. This behavior feels so insulting, frankly! I am not able to grasp why a large, powerful, multi-billion dollar corporation would be allowed to record conversations when the person they are talking to are not! This should not be legal! 

[ Oh, yes - in addition - we have had several notices of " overdraft '' on the account in question because Bank of America removed that money ( our money ) when they decided that they were going to refuse our appeal to have it reinstated. This issue has since been resolved but it added insult to injury to say the least! ] I am happy to provide any extra documentation that might be needed to look into this situation. I am also happy to talk with anyone about these concerns. 
I appreciate your time and service. 
Sincerely, XXXX XXXX [ Please note the website would not let me upload any documents ]

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