Consumer complaint received 2018-09-28
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
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:
On XX/XX/2018, I received a call from Bank of America alerting me of a suspicious charge which had been made on my Bank of America debit card for {$370.00}. I was not at home so logged into my Bank of America bank account on my cell phone. When I looked at my Bank of America debit card statement online, I saw an unauthorized charge of {$370.00}.

I immediately called Bank of America and told the Bank of America customer service representative that I had not authorized this charge and that I had never heard of this company from which the purchase had been made. Bank of America said they would take the charge off. In fact, in the time I was on hold, waiting for a representative several more charges appeared on my account. I told the representative again that the charges were not authorized and the representative said they would take those charges off as well. We then closed that card - I cut up my debit card and much to my inconvenience, waited at least five days to receive another debit card in the mail with a new number - When I logged onto my Bank of America web page several days later, I was dismayed to see that although a few of the charges had been taken off, the charge of {$370.00} was still deducted from my account. I then went into the bank and opened a claim on that charge with a Bank of America representative. I was issued a temporary credit and told that I may be receiving documents in the mail to further clarify this claim.

I never received any other documents but got a letter on XX/XX/2018 saying the claim had been closed and the temporary credit would be reversed. I called the Bank of America FRAUD Department the next day to find out why my claim was denied and I was given two reasons : One was that the address and zip code matched my address and zip code. I was confused by this because anyone can go online and obtain this information by googling my name.

The second reason they gave was that allegedly, I never took any action to prevent further problems with my debit account. Again I was quite confused because this didn't correlate to the facts and I assume that Bank of America has all of this information in their records.

I filed a police report - Now the burden of proof is on me but I can't prove that Bank of America canceled my previous debit card because of the unauthorized charges or that I was issued a new debit card. But this information is in the Bank of America records and is something they should have and could have access to. This was confirmed to me by my Bank of America branch representative. I will try to obtain my phone records from XX/XX/2018 to prove the calls were received from Bank of America and made to Bank of America on XX/XX/2018. I have a prepaid phone plan so it will take 6 to 8 weeks to receive the records. I certainly hope this will be resolved before then.

The charge in question was made to a company I had never heard of. ( The name and phone number of this company are no longer listed on my bank statement for some reason. I think the name was XXXX. ) I did call this company when the number was still listed on my bank statement and apparently this company sets up phone accounts of some type. Apparently, the company could not find the charge made with my debit card because I had never opened an account with them. 
Please help me get my money ( {$370.00} ) back from Bank of America.

Thank you,

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 monetary relief