Consumer complaint received 2018-01-25
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
I made an international wire transfer USD {$14000.00} to XXXX from Bank of America after the banks cutoff time ( XXXX ( EST ) ) on XXXX XXXX, XXXX. After completing this international wire transfer, I immediately found the recipient was a scammer when I rechecked the invoice information, phone number, email address online. I immediately asked XXXX XXXX XXXX ( a manager of BOA financial center located XXXX, CA ) to cancel or recall this international wire transfer. However, XXXX XXXX spent about 10mins on successfully making a phone call to the wire department of BOA. The associate of wire department told us that this international wire transfer has already been sent out, and could not be cancelled internally at that time. XXXX XXXX also told me that the associate suggested us to do formal cancellation request next morning. I said it was too late to do this cancellation request next morning. So I urged XXXX XXXX to make formal cancellation request using BOA internal system as soon as possible. However, XXXX XXXX was not familiar with this internal system, so he spent about 1 hour on writing this cancellation request. About XXXX ( EST ), XXXX XXXX sent the formal cancellation request to the wire department of BOA . I further wanted to confirm whether the wire department of BOA can send this cancellation request out. About XXXX ( EST ), I made a phone call to wire department of BOA , and at that time the associate said they had not yet sent this cancellation request out. After I further urged them to do it, this associate finally sent this cancellation request out at about XXXX ( EST ). 
In the past of 2 weeks, every business day I called the wire department of BOA ( phone number : XXXX ) to check update from the recipients bank, but this phone line was always very busy, I often waited for more than 1 hour to successfully connect with an associate. This phone line is also the only way I can contact BOA regarding this cancellation request. Every time each associate gave me different information even though they read the same message from recipients bank. Even worse, when the recipient bank asked BOA to send a police report ( provided by XXXX police department ) to them using BOA official email, but all associates and managers from BOA said they cant send any email with any document attachment to recipient bank. XXXX XXXX XXXX from local BOA financial center also said they can not help me to send any email or any attachment to other recipient bank. Regarding this police report, I spent 2 days negotiating with BOA, and BOA agreed to ask the recipient bank whether I can send the police report by myself, and finally I sent the police report to recipient bank using my personal email. Last week the recipient bank also asked the BOA whether to write an indemnity or guarantee letter for me, but BOA demonstrated they never write any letter for their clients, and also BOA cant provide any further assistance for my refund. 

I feel very disappointed that BOA as one of largest bank in the world, used this way to treat their clients. Due to BOA wire department with busy phone line, we can not make any cancellation upon international wire transfer within 30mins. When I found that the recipient of my international wire transfer was a scammer immediately after completing the transfer, the Bank of America had sent the money out to the scammers bank even after its cutoff time and I couldnt take any action to cancel it in time. And during requesting refund from the recipients bank, Bank of America didnt provide significant support to help me to get refunds from the scammers account. BOA never pushed the recipient bank to refund the fraud obtaining money using legal action or international wire transfer rule/regulation. Even worse, BOA set up many barriers to its clients.

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