Consumer complaint received 2019-04-23
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX Our Financial Controller received a Bank of America Fraud Alert for one of our corporate credit cards totaling {$14000.00}. We verified that they were absolutely fraudulent charges. At the time the cardholder was in XXXX XXXX, CA on vacation and the card was locked in her office at work, which was verified by our Financial Controller. Prior to these fraudulent transactions, the cardholder had not used this card since XX/XX/XXXX. 
On XX/XX/XXXX We received a letter from Bank of America declining our claim in the amount of XXXX. After reaching out to them to inquire why they would not decline these fraudulent charges, our account Manager at Bank of America, XXXX XXXX advised us that the Bank of America Fraud Department requires a police report to be filed before they would look into this matter. This was done by the card holder on XX/XX/XXXX and the report was sent to XXXX XXXX via email. 
On XX/XX/XXXX The cardholder received a phone call stating that the fraudulent charges would not be cancelled and following this call we sent in substantial proof that she was not in XXXX XXXX, NV where most of these charges took place. We repeatedly asked for information on how they came to this conclusion and were told that the card has a chip which can not be copied. After much of our own research, we know this is not true. A chip is completely capable of being copied and we even found the tools to do so online and sent the evidence to XXXX XXXX to alert her Fraud Department. 
On XX/XX/XXXX We received a letter from Bank of America declining the possibility of fraudulent usage for {$13000.00} stating that the assigned PIN was entered at the point of sale, which is not possible because this is a company credit card. There is no assigned pin to be entered at the point of sale. We immediately reached out to XXXX XXXX to let her know that there seems to be a confusion with their fraud department in regards to this claim. This is a credit card with a chip that they are claiming can not be copied yet also saying that the card holder used their pin at the point of sale. 
On XX/XX/XXXX The cardholder called the vendor ( XXXX XXXX ) of the largest purchase on the statement and their finance department verified that their system recognized it as a fraudulent charge, so no merchandise was ever sent out. The charge was for {$2900.00} and made online. The billing and the shipping address did not match up on the card, so this alerted XXXX XXXX of possible fraud. XXXX XXXX told us to contact Bank of America to report this as fraudulent and theyd be happy to refund this money back to the bank. Bank of America had never reached out to XXXX XXXX regarding this claim. All of this was revealed after what Bank of America assured us that there was a thorough investigation done on their part. This reveal prompted us to continue our own investigation and further findings lead us to believe that Bank of America never sought out any relative information or evidence in regards to this investigation. 
The cardholder then contacted the XXXX XXXX which had 2 fraudulent charges for {$1000.00} and {$1300.00} and XXXX XXXX which had 3 fraudulent charges for {$250.00}, {$290.00} and {$310.00}. They confirmed that they were not in-store charges but rather done online, so there was no way that the chip being present or pin being input as Bank of America is claiming as their denial for these charges is possible. Furthermore, they also were never contacted by Bank of America in regards to this claim. 
After emailing our Bank of America Account Manager, XXXX XXXX about what we uncovered, Bank of America credited it us for those specific transactions {$2900.00}, {$250.00}, {$290.00} and {$310.00} but XXXX XXXX stated that in regards to the rest of the claim that the chip present transactions will be rejected as not a fraud due to the card being present. We can not prove the charges that were made online were made by the cardholder. They are saying that there are fraudulent transactions in between valid transactions made in another state. Again, how is this possible when the cardholder AND the card are in XXXX XXXX, CA when all of these charges took place? 
On XX/XX/XXXXWe asked for an explanation in writing as to why this claim was denied and on XX/XX/XXXX we received what we believe to be the fraud departments investigative report with no letter head, signature or indication that this sensitive information was from Bank of America. 
In this report their decision was that they were unable to conclude that fraud occurred. However, what about those transactions they ultimately concluded were fraud based on our own findings? 
The reasons for their conclusion were as follows : The 1st and 2nd ( XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX transactions claimed as fraud in a string of 42 transactions were XXXX miles from our cardholders home. Even though, the rest of the transactions were all in XXXX XXXX, NV where the cardholder can prove she was nowhere near. They claim that the credit card activity is not consistent with a lost or stolen card or a claim of counterfeit. 
Other reasons that they claim to have come to this conclusion are as follows, The XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX confirmed that the customer authorized and signed for the transaction and left the store with the merchandise. How did they come to the conclusion that this was our cardholder? The signature does not match the cardholders. And furthermore, the signatures dont even match each other. 
Another reason they claimed was that the card had no declined charges after the account was closed, which they claimed suggested that the card user was aware of the account status. This is not a valid reason because the card was declined at some point due to suspicious activity, which is how we were alerted to begin with! 
Another reason was that the cardholder has 2 prior counterfeit claims the year prior, which honestly to us just proves that their system is not as safe as they claim. 
Lastly although, our cardholder provided evidence to prove she couldnt have been both in XXXX XXXX and in XXXX XXXX at the same exact timethis was not enough evidence to them. 
We immediately emailed our Bank of America Account Manager, XXXX XXXX to tell her about this document we received and asked to send even more evidence such as photos and personal credit card receipts issued in XXXX XXXX, CA to further prove that our cardholder was in XXXX XXXX, CA while these fraudulent charges occurred. XXXX XXXX did not respond to several emails about this until XX/XX/XXXX when she stated that unfortunately there was nothing that they could do at this point and that the case was now closed. We asked XXXX XXXX for the agreement of how Bank of America handled fraudulent activity claims with customers, so that our Legal Counsel could review and she gave us a phone number to call to obtain what she called XXXX XXXX for XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX and we were told by various agents that this document does not exist. We once again reached out to XXXX XXXX after making the calls to obtain the said fact sheet to let her know of this finding and to see if she could just send it to us and at this point, she has not responded to our emails or calls regarding this matter.

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