Consumer complaint received 2023-08-21
Company: FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF OMAHA
State: PA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
I am XXXX XXXX XXXX US Citizen. I have had an account ending with last 4 digits of XXXX with First Bankcard of XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX, Nebraska, XXXX since XXXX. I had always made my payments in a timely manner and to the best of my knowledge none of my payments were ever returned. 

I suffered a massive XXXX XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX and my health continued to deteriorate until XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  when I had an XXXX XXXX XXXX I am still recovering from my XXXX XXXX 

Around XX/XX/XXXX, I became a victim of Scam and I lost about {$93000.00} primarily due to a critical issue with First Bankcard online platform accepting payments from 3rd parties without validation allowing them to make payments using fake bank accounts which resulted in payments being returned. Consequently First Bankcard debiting those payments to my account as chargebacks. The balance shown on their XXXX XXXX XXXX   statement was {$74000.00} but surprisingly the balance was suddenly increased to {$100000.00} in their XXXX XXXX XXXX statement, an increase of {$35000.00} for reasons never explained to me. I also believe that my account had been hacked. 

I had a similar situation with XXXX  XXXX XXXX credit card but my experience with them was just the opposite. I was protected there because their platform didn't accept payments from 3rd parties without validation. 

I received payment return notifications from First Bankcard stating that payments made by me were returned by my bank. These notifications were all wrong because firstly the payments were not made by me and secondly those payments were not returned by my bank. But instead those payments were made by 3rd parties using their fake bank bank accounts. 

Why should I be held liable for return payments that were not made by me on the first place and why should those be charged back to my account? 

I wrote several letters to First Bankcard and tried to resolve this issue but they continued to deny my claim. 

First Bankcard suspended my account due to returned payments on XXXX XXXX XXXX and closed my account on XX/XX/XXXX for the same reason. First Bankcard decided to refer my account for collection to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  of XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, NY XXXX on XXXX XXXX XXXX 

First Bankcard has blocked my phone number and I am no longer able to speak to them. I have also tried to communicate with the collection agency, XXXX XXXX XXXX but they are also not responding to my letters or phone calls. 

My credit score has suffered very badly due to this scam. From around 750 range it had a freefall to around 450 range and it is slowly creeping up but won't be fixed unless this issue is resolved. 

Since my communicating with First Bankcard was not having much impact, I decided to seek legal advice and went to an attorney and have him write a letter to First Bankcard. My attorney did an excellent job describing the whole issue. A copy of that letter is attached with this complaint. I am also attaching some of my correspondence with First Bankcard and the collection agency, XXXX XXXX XXXX.

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