Consumer complaint received 2018-10-04
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NJ
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I was traveling for work outside of XXXX, MA. I received an email from someone who I thought was my title agent ( the email came in the name of my title agent and contained his signature block ). I was in the process of closing on a new home and knew that the closing would be happening soon ( we had been trying to close on this house for over two years, but the sellers were representing an estate and they were in court with various issues over that two year period of time ). 

The email from the person that I thought was my title agent requested that I send the closing costs via wire transfer so as to not delay the closing. I had been told earlier that a XX/XX/XXXX closing was possible. 

Because I was traveling for work, I found the closest Bank of America to my job location. Between meetings, I ran to the Bank of America and sat down with one of the employees at the desk. I explained to him that I got an email from my title agent requesting that I wire the funds for closing. I provided the man at the desk with the wire instructions that were included in the email that I had received. 

Upon review of the wire instructions, the man at the desk let me know that I did not have to wire the funds, but could do an account to account transfer, since the recipient of the funds was also a Bank of America customer. He said that would save me the money of doing the wire. He then referred me to the man behind the counter to assist me with making the transfer. 

I provided the man at the Bank of America counter the wire instructions and he made the transfer from my savings account of approximately {$29000.00}. He let me know that the transfer was complete and gave me a receipt of the transaction. 

We did not end up closing on the house on XX/XX/XXXX because the municipality did not provide some required real estate tax information in time. We then prepared to close on XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX ( I was back from by business trip by now ), I  received a call from my title agent. He asked me to bring a certified check to the closing that was scheduled for XXXX XXXX the next day. I was very confused at this request since I had wired the money to him the week before. When I explained this to my title agent, he said that he never requested me to wire any money. It soon became clear that some sort of fraud had taken place. 

I immediately called Bank of America to report what had happened. I was told that this was not a case of identity theft since I authorized the transfer. They recommended that I go to the branch and see if there was anything they could do to help me. By this time the branch was closed, but I filed a police report with my local police department and also filed online complaints with the Internet Crime Complaint Center ( IC3.gov ) and the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC.gov ). 

As soon as the branch opened the next morning, I went, not only to report what had happened to me but, if I still wanted to close on the house, I needed to get another check for the closing costs. Obviously, all of this was very upsetting to me. Because the closing had taken so long to happen, I scrimped and saved so that I would have the money for the down payment/closing costs, but also so that I could make the repairs on the new house without taking out any further loans. This was not easy, as I am a single parent to a XXXX year old and I did not want to get in over my head with this new house. 

They were very sympathetic at the branch, but I felt like any resolution was out of these individuals ' hands. I got the certified check ( thank XXXX I had enough money saved to move forward with my closing ) and we did close on the house that day. 

Several weeks later, I received a call from the US Secret Service.  They were investigating what happened to me. I'm not sure if their involvement was a result of the police report I filed or the online complaints that I submitted, but I was happy that someone was working on catching the person that committed this fraud and hopefully getting my money back. 

At some point the account that the money had been transferred to had been frozen but of the approximately {$29000.00} that had been transferred, only a little over {$12000.00} remained. The US Secret Service was able to locate the person that received the money and an investigation is ongoing. I have requested the release of the remaining money from the account, and I am still waiting for it to be released to me. 

Since this happened to me, I have been trying to warn others about these scams. I went on the XXXX page of Bank of America to let others know what happened to me, but Bank of America had the nerve to block me and deleted my posts because I shared the truth about my experience with their bank. Shame on them.

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 explanation