Consumer complaint received 2023-02-19
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: NV
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I am an US Citizen. Re : XXXX crime report and complaint to Bof A on receipt of counterfeit gold. 
Im XXXX and XXXX. I was contacted on XXXX by someone claiming to be an old friend in XXXX with whom Ive not spoken in a long time. She said she was XXXX in hospital and wanted to leave me some personal effects such as gold jewelry and some cash and to give he my XXXX for her attorney to contact me. That did not seem I unusual until after some very innocuous questions, an online bank account was opened for me showing XXXX. Also a separate individual claiming to be an officer of this bank said the gold was not jewelry but XXXX XXXX ingots. XXXX or XXXX. At first it was explained to me that for XXXX the money could be transferred to my personal account at my own bank. Of course at this time I knew I had been sucked into a scam, but it angered me enough to play it out. Im not rich but Im not poor either and the level of sophistication of the criminals angered me, as I used to be a XXXX in XXXX and Im also aware of the cost, time and knowledge involved in writing the code for such a site. The crimes range anywhere from identity theft to impersonating bank officers, lawyers, the creation of a very convincing website claiming to be a financial solution in XXXX, the sale of counterfeit gold, impersonating and faking government official emblems, watermarks and stationery. Im going to skip to the chase now and tell you that I went to XXXX, XXXX where I met up with the criminals under the pretense that they would show me the inheritance from my friend before I gave them any more of the increasing fees they were demanding for the transfer. Before going, I organized all of the XXXX messages and documents on a XXXX XXXX and I alerted the hotel staff about where to find it if I wasnt in the hotel most of the time and call the police. After I took the fake gold to XXXX where it was declared rubbish. The criminals wanted more money from me and this time I had undercover police officers in the hotel lobby while I pretended to commence to dine with him. The XXXX police arrested him and raided his phone where they located other victims on his electronics. The other criminals dont seem to know or care where he is because they keep contacting me to convince me that the case containing my inheritance/donation has been caught up in customs ( Im XXXX and living in XXXX ). It had been my intention to cease interacting with them but a phone call took me by surprise when I was in the garden and my phone was in my pocket. This is when I had a long opportunity to hear the main coordinator of my scam speak for almost an hour. He sounds of an heavily XXXX accented French and defaults to XXXX when frustrated. He also claims to be in XXXX. The high crimes division of the XXXX XXXX police department has the XXXX XXXX I prepared before going there as well as mu real time reporting of what continues to XXXX of the officers who forwards my comm to the offices. In total, I have given ( XXXX ) separate depositions and probably XXXX bits of evidence as well as handing over the counterfeit gold to the XXXX Police XXXX Ive contacted XXXX, Belgian and French consulates and made a complaint to XXXX that they are allowing these criminals to freely and easily use their platform to extort money from elderly women and the criminals have violated their Legal conditions by selling me counterfeit gold but it has been two weeks and they have not replied. My complaints to Bof A have also not resulted in temporary credit to my account during investigation.

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