Consumer complaint received 2018-05-02
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: GA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXXI was a victim of an irregular theft on school campus at around XXXX. I was studying in one of the college buildings while interacting with my phone which includes using my Bank of America mobile banking application. During these activities, I had to urgently use the men 's restroom. However, while doing so I had left my belongings including my mobile device where it was. With the school building having a moderate amount of students and being operated by school officials at all time, It did not severely strike me that someone would attempt to take any of my belongings. Unfortunately, after stepping out of the restroom I had noticed that my phone was taken. After 10 minutes of frantic searching and asking around, I had eventually found out that my phone was turned in at the front desk. I assumed that a person may have just turned in the device because they thought it was lost. My phone does not lock so the first thing I did was immediately check through my financial applications to see if everything was fine, I checked my Bank of America mobile application but I assumed that there was no way for them to access it because it logs you off after a certain amount of time. I checked my messages and saw that BoFa had sent me a security code for me to log in, I took a glimpse and passed it off as I thought I used it to log in to my account prior to using the restroom. Moments later after heading home, I received an automated message at approximately XXXX XXXX that {$300.00} was taken from my account. I immediately checked my bank account and saw that this was sent through XXXX and the recipients possible name being listed on there.

I had attempted to investigate this on my own to see how it was possible, and from what I discovered was that the security code message that I took a glimpse at was them trying to authenticate their transfer of {$300.00}. The only way they would be able to do that was if they were able to log into my bank account with my personal information, which I have saved in notes but it would take a good deal amount of time to find it and the time span it took to find my phone made it seemed unlikely. I assumed that the mobile application would automatically log you out after a certain amount of seconds, however I timed it myself, went to the home screen after logging into my bank app and it took at least more than 2 minutes for it to log me out which is enough time for them to take my phone and go back into the application with full access..

The next day on XX/XX/XXXX I called Bank of America to explain my situation and opened up a claim with the e-commerce department. They told me that it would take 10 business days for me to get information on my claim. They froze my account and had recommended that I open a new account at one of their local banking centers. I went through all this process and it took me approximately 3-4 days to have my available funds transferred to my new account, which was a very inconvenient process. One of the personal bankers explained to me that it was " odd '' and that the mobile banking application should have logged me out after a certain amount of seconds, however we both tested it ourselves and concluded that it was way much longer than seconds. After that I drove to the school building and talked to the employees at the front desk that received my phone but they were not able to give me any useful information at all and suggested that I make a police report.

After 10 business days, which was ended on XX/XX/XXXX I called the Bank of America 's e-commerce department to transfer funds as well as to check the status on my claim. I was told that my claim was denied and that they would not be able to honor any funds from the incident. The reason that my claim was denied was because of " consistent login 's '' and at that point they provided no more information other than that. I did not attempt to refute against these reasons because of previous inconveniences with this particular financial institution and that I am shocked by the fact that they completely disregarded my thorough explanation of what happened which could have possibly explained why these logins were consistent.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation