Consumer complaint received 2022-04-03
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MI
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I was a victim of a housing scam done on XXXX on XX/XX/2022, I had previously spoken with the scammer under their assumed identity as the landlord of the a private property in XXXX, and over the course of several days, including asking us to do a drive by viewing, fill out an application, wait multiple days for " verification '' of our information, we were approved, only to be told when the payment processed there was an issue on the end of the landlord, due to their wife 's account number that was provided being hacked. 

They proceeded to ask for us to reverse the charge on the bank, at which point we asked for proof of the issue from their bank, which they refused to provide, they proceeded to stress the importance of making a second deposit quickly via a secondary processing method ( XXXX ) to their daughters account to hold onto the housing. 

They proceeded to then pose as a member of the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, going as far as faking emails they sent to themselves and subsequently and sent screenshots of to me. 

I spoke to the organization, and could not confirm any information of the landlord, but was told if the landlord was a member, they could reach out to authorize confirming that information with us. 

The landlord refused to go thru confirming via phone with the organization and provided us with what we believed was a falsified drivers license. 

On recommendation of the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, we verified via XXXX 's government website that the property belonged to someone else. 

We confronted the landlord who argued the homeowners were related to him and had given him the home. The landlord repeated refused our request to verify with the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX via phone, after some research we determined the home was owned by a contractor, and we could not verify any connection between them and the landlord. 

We did state that since they refused to respond we can only assume the situation was a scam. We did state that we would report them for fraud. 

We tried reaching out to the XXXX police unsuccessfully, and XXXX XXXX police state it is not in their jurisdiction. 

We reached out to the contractor who owns the property as well the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX to report suspected fraud on behalf of this person. 

We can provide images of communications between ourselves and the individual as well as the driver license they provided us with, and paperwork that was sent, including a rental contract. 

We reached out to the initial bank account that the individual provided ( XXXX XXXX  ) but was told by that company there was nothing they could do to investigate the fraud. 

Prior to this we contacted our bank, initially to " reverse '' the transaction, which is the same bank that would receive the transfer with the hacked account of the landlord 's wife. 

We were in contact with bank of America three times on behalf of this, first to report, then initially after when our claim was denied, with letter asking us to contact the individual and ask for our money returned. 

We had, before this denial already provided all of the above information, we spoke this to another representative, which they made note of and have since received a second denial that is the same exact letter, with claim to ask the person for refund again. 

We have no real way of contacting anyone who is not a customer service represented who has little to no ability to do anything to help us, nor are they seemingly able to report this information in the investigation, It frankly makes the concept of " fraud prevention. '' ring hollow, as before we were even aware it was fraud, we asked to have it reversed by the scammer themselves. 

I make this complaint in the hope that any action at all can be taken

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