Consumer complaint received 2018-11-13
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I received a {$14000.00} loan from XXXX by XXXX XXXX after being approved for a personal loan. As part of the application process, I entered in my Bank of America online log-in and password information to receive the money in my checking account. 9 days later on XX/XX/XXXX, {$20000.00} was transferred from my checking account to my joint account. I did not perform nor authorize this transaction. In my joint account, {$19000.00} was taken out to pay 4 separate credit cards ( XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX ) through " Bill Payment, '' some sort of platform I do not use. 2 of them ( XXXX and XXXX ) were still processing at the time. 

I discovered these fraud charges on Tuesday, XXXX and immediately called Bank of America. The bank opened up 2 fraud claims and froze my account. Once my account froze, the bank account essentially showed a - {>= $1,000,000} balance. Because the online system recognized my account has having " insufficient charges '', 2 of the 4 fraud charges that were processing did NOT go through and I was returned {$9800.00} a couple days later. 

On Wednesday, XXXX I went to my bank center and transferred over my remaining balance to a new account to protect myself in the future. During the process, the bank manager called the fraud department to notify them. At this time, the claims were NOT resolved yet. 

On Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX I have not received any updates on the remaining {$9100.00} so I called Bank of America. The  representative on the phone informed me the claims were closed and that the associate assigned to the case concluded that essentially this is not fraud. The first major issue is that no one had contacted me to let me know of any updates. When I asked when these claims were closed, he told me it was Wednesday, XXXX - the day after they were opened and the day I was at the bank center. So the bank took 1 day to review my claims and decided I just lose {$9000.00}. And did not contact me whatsoever. The bank believed my information was not enough to show that this is fraud as they believe I just took out a {$14000.00} loan to pay off credit cards. If they took the time and investigated the credit card payments posted as " Bill Payment '', they will easily discover that these are not my accounts and these activities were not done by me. I explained this very carefully when I filed these claims but they completely disregarded this. 

My bank account information is never shared or public, but if criminals hacked my information in other ways that I can't possibly imagine and I can't provide information on how exactly they obtained it, Bank of America is essentially saying I have no proof and I am being punished for a cyber crime. Today, the representative resubmitted the claim but again, there is no visibility on how much the new associate assigned to this case will investigate before concluding " insufficient evidence. '' Bank of America did not even bother contacting me at all throughout this nightmare and did not reach out for more information in any way BEFORE closing the first claim. Bank of America decided in 1 day that a {$20000.00} fraud claim does not have enough evidence to show that it is " fraud '' without investigating the fraudulent credit card payments that would easily give them the substantial evidence that they are fraud. 

I have been a customer with Bank of America for 11 years and this is how I am treated for an issue that I never had to deal with.

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