Consumer complaint received 2021-01-27
Company: Square Inc
State: MD
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, someone called my son and said that they were from CASH APP and there was some fraudulent activity reported and they needed some information from him to verify the activity. He gave them some information ( I do not know exactly what it was ) but within minutes they had 7 withdrawals from his account to people he did not know. They were : {$10.00} ( XXXX XXXX  ) {$100.00} to XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX  ) ( $ XXXX ) {$450.00} to XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX  ) {$470.00} to XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX  ) ( $ XXXX ) {$480.00} to XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX  ) ( $ XXXX ) {$480.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX ) ( $ XXXX ) {$480.00} to XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX ) ( $ XXXX ) My son immediately realized he had been scammed and called XXXX XXXX XXXX  and reported it. They said they would refund him the money and investigate. 
The money did not appear in his account and he called again on XX/XX/XXXX. The bank said they had not completed a report but they would and they put the amount back in his account - {$2500.00} On XX/XX/XXXX, my son went to the store and when he came home, he said he had been scammed again. He was negative approximately {$2500.00}. When I looked at his account, it said dispute credit reversal. We called the bank and they said that they had investigated and it was a third party situation and the third party ( Cash APP ) had enough information to prove that they were valid transactions. ( How they could decide that those amounts in a matter of minutes were valid is hard to understand- but apparently, my son confirmed something and the numbers matched. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I went with my son to the bank- thinking that if I went in person it would help. I waited in the line because I was told the only way to speak to a manager is to wait in line for the teller. When we discussed the situation with her she said, The bank { where she was } does not handle fraud concerns and that it was already settled. She said the bank could not do anything about it and we had to take it up with the third party which was CASH APP itself. We asked, How do you get in touch with CASH APP- how did the bank get in touch with them? The teller said she did not know and that we should google the number for CASH APP Support. We went outside and my son googled CASH APP Customer Service Phone number ( see attached ) The man on the phone was apologetic that we had been scammed and said he would refund the money immediately. He asked for my sons CASH APP account information but was unable to deposit money into it because it had been closed down. He wanted to put it into my sons bank account but that was unavailable because it was in the negative. He told my son to go to the app store on his phone and download this XXXX  XXXX  app. He then said since I had a CASH APP account he could put the money in my account and then I could transfer to my son. He had me download the XXXX app. ( I often use team viewer and other apps at work where the other party can see what is on my computer and help so I did not think this was unusual ). The man said, OK we have to see if this works. He kept having me go through multiple steps and since I was not familiar with the CASH APP program, I was just following his instructions ; go to the clock on the far right, go to the profile on the top right, go to the symbol on the far left oh its not working- close the app and re- open. He said all these different things multiple times. He said he had to make sure he could deposit the money so he said go to the To space and type COI. He said this was customer assistance. He said type XXXX and hit send. He said then he would send it back to me to see if it worked. Whenever it failed, he said oh we would have to try again. He said type in XXXX - I said who is that? He said it was a representative at CASH APP. He kept doing this telling me what to do and back and forth. When I asked what we were doing, he said you want to get the money back dont you? What were the amounts that were taken? I gave him all the details. Then he asked what my routing number was. I said I didnt know off hand. He said to go to my bank app - I do not know if I did when he was on my screen or not but then he said, Oh type in this number and it was my routing number he knew it. Then he had me type in my bank account number and I did. 
At this point, I started getting nervous about why this was taking so long and why I was typing these things, he kept saying one more thing one more time. I went into the bank to ask for help. I had to wait in line again everyone in the bank could see I was very distraught- a woman let me get in from of her when I got to the teller she said were you the next in line? I said, No, she was but she let me ahead. She said, No, I have to take people in order. I went and sat down in a chair and started speaking very loudly on the phone asking why is he having me send to these people I dont know. He said they worked for the company and he was trying to help me. I said, No I am not sending to these people. He said, who else is on your CASH APP? I said, My daughter. He said, OK you trust her send the money to her to see if we can send it back to you. He had me send amounts to her and then he said call her or text her and tell her to send it back to you. I did this twice. I texted her and told her to send it back to me. She was in class and texted back- that she didnt think this was right why was I sending her this I said just send it back to me we are trying to get back the money that was taken from your brother. She did it a few times and then he said to do it again this time for {$990.00} and for {$700.00}. She started getting annoyed. The man kept saying just text her tell her one last time tell her to send it back right away. I said I dont think this is right He said well you called us we didnt call you. I said I want to speak to a manager. He got another man on the phone ; He started doing the same thing. I tried to get help again from the bank. They refused to get involved or even see what was happening. Finally, my boss and my daughter sent me links or messages that said there is no such thing as a phone number for CASH APP support - you can only get help through email. At this point, either the man hung up or we got disconnected. ( We had gotten disconnected twice and he had called back ) I went back to the bank and asked to speak to the manager. I said I wanted to close my accounts. The teller came back with 6 slips ( of the 6 accounts that I have ) and said you can close them all but two because there were pending issues. One was my account that had pending CASH APP Mya for {$990.00}, one for {$790.00} and one for {$700.00}. I knew these were not valid, but the person at the bank said we cant do anything until they clear. I said, But I dont want them to clear, they are fraudulent transactions. The bank representative said he couldnt do anything. 

I called XXXX XXXX when I got home. After waiting XXXX minutes I spoke to someone explained what happened. She said she would stop my debit card and reissue a new one. She said probably the three pending CASH App charges would not go through. If they did to call back to XXXX. 

Emails that I was able to see after this all happened I did not see this while I was on the phone with this man. 

1. Cash App XXXX requested {$100.00} I sent XXXX $ coosed {$100.00} ( this was what was in my account ) I need this back 2. Cash App XXXX XXXX $ XXXX - sent me {$98.00} and then next it said failed. 
3. Cash App {$550.00} to XXXX $ XXXX ( I didn't see this XXXX at the time or I would have hung up immediately ) 4. Cash App payment failed to XXXX. 
5. Cash App XXXX XXXX requested {$420.00} for refund ( he was telling me to write in refund because I was getting the money back ) 6. Cash App I sent {$420.00} to XXXX XXXX for refund. ( $ XXXX ) 7. Cash App Email says Cash refunded request from $ XXXX " For your protection, your {$420.00} payment to XXXX XXXX was refunded, {$420.00} has been returned to your bank account and will be available Thursday '' ( I don't know what this means ) 8. Cash App you sent {$990.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX ( This is my XXXX  ) Completed amount. 
9. Cash App payment from XXXX XXXX She sent the money back as requested. 
10. Cash App XXXX XXXX requested {$990.00} from me ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ). I do not know who this is. I did not see this email until after I was off the phone. 
11. Cash App - It says I sent {$990.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I did not do this! 
12. Cash App " you sent {$1400.00} to XXXX XXXX 13. Cash App XXXX XXXX Payment of {$1400.00} cash refunded to me. ( Email says, " For your protection, your {$1400.00} payment to XXXX XXXX was refunded, {$1400.00} has been returned to your bank account and will be available Thursday. 
14. Cash App " you sent {$790.00} to MyaD '' 15. Cash App XXXX XXXX sent you {$790.00} 16. Cash App " you sent {$790.00} to XXXX XXXX '' 17. Cash App " XXXX XXXX requested {$710.00} ( XXXX XXXX ) 18. Cash App " XXXX XXXX canceled a request for {$710.00}. 
19. Cash App " XXXX XXXX requested {$790.00} 20. Cash App " XXXX XXXX payment for {$790.00}. 
21. Cash App You sent {$790.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX. Cash App " XXXX requested {$700.00} 23. Cash App " You sent {$700.00} to XXXX 24. Cash App XXXX refunded. XXXX XXXX Request from XXXX XXXX {$700.00} cash refunded for your protection. For your protection, your {$700.00} payment to XXXX  was refunded ; {$700.00} has been returned to your bank account and will be available Thursday. 
25. Cash App " you sent {$700.00} to XXXX XXXX. 
26. Cash App " XXXX requested {$700.00} '' 27. Cash App " XXXX XXXX sent you {$700.00} 28. Cash App XXXX request from XXXX XXXX {$700.00} XXXX refunded for your protection 29. Cash App XXXX XXXX XXXX requested {$700.00}. XXXX  XXXX request for {$700.00}. 
30. Cash App you sent {$700.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX ( NO I DID NOT ) 31. Cash App XXXX XXXX XXXX requested {$600.00} XXXX  XXXX 32. Cash App XXXX XXXX XXXX canceled a request for {$700.00} There were three pending transactions in my bank account. They were all to CASH APPXXXX  XXXX one for {$990.00}, one for {$790.00}, one for XXXX  XXXXI called the bank and told them to stop these but they went through to whoever was doing this. They did not go to my daughter  XXXX. I called the bank back and told them these were fraudulent. I got a letter in return saying no errors had occurred. I can prove that these did not go to my daughter by showing her bank statements. I was able to find out from CASH APP that the first amount went to XXXX XXXX someone named XXXX XXXX XXXX . I do not know who this is. I was only able to find this out in an email that I received from CASH APP when I complained to them via email. I do not know who the other amounts went to- {$990.00} and {$790.00}. I sent several additional emails to CASH APP to find out about these two and only got cursory emails telling me how to protect my CASH APP account. 

I appealed the decision that the bank made when it allowed the amounts to be deducted. They gave me a temporary credit on XX/XX/XXXX. However, on or around XX/XX/XXXX they sent a letter again saying they did not find any errors on the merchants part and they were withdrawing the amount they had credited. 

So the bank will not credit me with the money I was scammed out of and CASH APP will not give me the money I was scammed out of- I appealed to the consumer protection division of the state but I was told this was not the correct avenue. I don't know where else to go with this. I know now that you can't talk to someone from CASH APP but I didn't know that then.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation