Consumer complaint received 2021-11-05
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
SUMMARY OF XXXX XXXX, 2021 CHASE BANK PHONE SCAM/FRAUD I received a phone call at around XXXX PST on XXXX XXXX, 2021 from someone claiming to be a representative from the Chase Fraud dept XXXX who explained that someone from Oregon had attempted two separate withdrawals of funds from my account. He assured me that the attempts had been thwarted by Chase. 

He then explained that the person from Oregon was attempting to XXXX {$2000.00} to herself and that Chase was on top of that fraud as well. He explained that because XXXX did not refund fraudulently obtained funds, that the way to protect the account was for me to XXXX {$2000.00} to myself. This would put the funds back into my account, the supposed Chase Fraud Rep said. 

While I was on the call, I XXXX  the number that the supposed Chase Fraud representative was calling from, and it showed as a Chase Customer Service number. While I was still on the call, I had my husband use his phone to call the number. He did, and was connected to an official Chase Bank voice automated system. 

Now believing the caller to be a legitimate employee of the Chase Bank Fraud Department, I proceeded to follow the instructions, albeit with much trepidation. 

The ( fake ) Chase Bank Fraud Dept. representative instructed me to create a new recipient ( myself ) in the Chase app ( using my own phone number ) and XXXX myself {$2000.00}. I followed the instructions and sent the money to the new recipient ( which was me, using my own phone number ). After XXXX  the money to myself, my account immediately showed a {$2000.00} reduction, not reversed. 

I questioned the representative, who eventually transferred my call to another person, whom he referred to as his supervisor. The Supervisor explained that it would take 3-4 hours for the funds to appear and that he would call back later or the next morning to check to make sure everything was back in order. 

The Supervisor called back two and half hours later ( around XXXX PST ) and proceeded to explain that another XXXX transfer was needed to fix the problem. He explained that the first Chase Bank Fraud Department rep ( the first scammer ) had made a clerical error when transferring the initial {$2000.00}, and that hethe supervisorwould make sure that clerical error was corrected on this second transfer. 

When strongly questioned by me, he assured me that this was, in fact, the way Chase Bank handled these issues, and he assured me he would stay on the line until with me until I was satisfied that all the funds had been recovered. 

I followed his instructions, XXXX  myself {$2000.00} only to see another {$2000.00} disappear from my account. At this time, I became convinced the caller was a criminal, hung up, and reported the fraud to Chase and emailed their fraud department screenshots that showed the account activity from the scam as well as the scammers first names ( undoubtedly fake ) and one account number associated with the destination account for the XXXX transfer ( which, despite using the Chase Bank app to set up a transfer to my own phone number, did not send the money to me ). 

In my follow-up calls with the ( real ) Chase Bank Fraud Department , I was told that Chase Bank was unable to perform the recall request and had no option to reverse the fraudulent charges and that the bank was unable to continue as there was no option to perform a recall due to the fact that the transfer occurred with XXXX, a separate, private company ( which I will note here, is fully integrated into the Chase Bank app ).

In subsequent discussions with Chase Bank Fraud Department supervisors, I was blamed for the fraud and denied a refund based on the fact that I had supposedly " initiated '' the XXXX transfers. I would argue that the person claiming to be from Chase Fraud Dept. actually initiated an unauthorized transfer by fraudulently inducing me into sharing account access information that was used to initiate the *truly unauthorized* electronic funds transfer from my account.

In my follow up calls with the Chase Fraud dept., I asserted that Regulation E of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act covered this kind of scam, but Chase Bank never directly addressed that assertion, claiming only that there was nothing they could do.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation