Consumer complaint received 2018-07-09
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE 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:
We currently bank with USAA and have done so for more than a decade. We live in XXXX California. My wife and I are both XXXX veterans who served in XXXX in XXXX. Until now, we had nothing but good things to say about our bank, to the extent that I even got my father to switch over. 

On XX/XX/2018. We were victims of identity theft. On that day, a representative from USAA contacted us regarding a suspicious transaction with one of our debit cards at a XXXX in XXXX California. This was a fraudulent attempt and it was declined due to insufficient funds. While on the phone with the bank, we identified a second fraudulent transaction. In a nutshell, the scammers had been able to successfully contact our bank, impersonate us, request to change our online login credentials, and withdraw {$650.00} from an ATM in XXXX XXXX, CA. with a ( no-chip, swipe only ) card. 

Needless to say, the last few weeks have been extremely difficult for us. We have spent a ridiculous amount of hours with the bank in trying to understand what happened and what kind of information had been compromised. 

To make matters worse, through their internal investigation, the bank had determined that the ATM transaction was not fraudulent after all, even though it was done from a no-chip card hundreds of miles away from where we were. Once their investigation concluded, the bank failed to contact us about their findings, which resulted in additional charges to one of our credit cards due to overdraft. The bank has refused to tell us how they made this determination, citing proprietary security measures. They claimed that we called the bank on that day to make those illicit transaction even though there are no outbound calls from our phone service provider on that day. They have left us with virtually no way to appeal their decision, and have found us liable for the fraudulent charges even though we have documented proof that we did not make these transactions. We even had one customer service representative from the Office of the CEO at USAA who told us they agreed with the fact that this was clearly a fraudulent transaction but their hands were tied. 

When we asked the representative from the fraud department who handled our case, his name is XXXX XXXX XXXX, he discouraged us from filing a claim with regulatory agencies because he said it would circle right back to his department. 

When we filed a police report on this case. the officer who helped us could hardly believe that this bank had arrived at the conclusion given the proof we were able to provide to the contrary. Unfortunately, due to a matter of jurisdiction and resources, my impressions is that the local police department wont be able to help us much in this matter. 

Not only do we feel like weve been wronged by the fraud perpetrated against us, but weve also had to process the fact that the bank is telling us that they think we are partaking in some sort of scam and may have shared our bank information with family members to defraud them even though we can dispute their claims with solid facts. To this day, we do not know what information was used to perpetrate this fraud. We have every reason to believe that all of our accounts at USAA remain compromised and we are forced to begin the lengthy process of switching to another bank. From what we know, the criminals that took our money still have the means to do it again. 

We can not believe that any bank has the power to make such arbitrary decisions, hold the customer responsible for weakness in their security systems, and to add insult to injury suggest that we might be trying to defraud them. 

We are simply asking for a fair appeal, and we need to understand how this happened and what other personal information was compromised. 

Thanks!

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation