Consumer complaint received 2016-03-07
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MD
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Making/receiving payments, sending money

Complaint:
I am writing this complaint on behalf of my mother. Someone secured my XXXX year old mother 's banking Capitol One Bank checking account and routing numbers ( and probably her social security number ) beginning XX/XX/XXXX. Beginning XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX some individual made a series of fraudulant Automatic Clearing House ( ACH ) credit and debit withdrawals and ACH '' bill pay '' through XXXX to for a total of {$44.00}, XXXX! The individual by the name of " XXXX XXXX '' routinely raided my mother 's checking account beginning with small amounts that escalated to large amounts from XX/XX/XXXX until the account was drained by XX/XX/XXXX. 

My mother recieved an overdraft notice on XX/XX/XXXX from Capital One, NA, ( located at XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, MD XXXX ) indicating that her account was overdrawn for 10 days. In response to the letter from the bank my mother went to the bank in person. 

At that time she was asked a series of questions by several " fraud inverstigators '' from Capital One. They said that their investigation would take 10 days. Over the next several days my mother a number of attempts to contact the bank branch manager, XXXX XXXX XXXX by telephone. Each call was met with " we 'll take a messge for XXXX . XXXX. '' However, those calls were not returned. I decided it was paste time to visit the bank with my mother. XXXX XXXX printed out a list of ACH tranasctions We were assured my mother 's money would be restored after an investigation was completed. We then closed the old accounts ( bothe checking and savings ) and opened new ones. We signed up for online banking so that I could view and track her accpounts. 

On Satuarday, XXXX my mother recieved a letter from a XXXX XXXX XXXX which stated that my mother 's claim was " denied because the documentd from the Merchant showed that the ACH transactions were valid. '' I called the telephone number on the letter to discuss their " decision. '' I learned that the fraudlent ACH transaction were comitted through XXXX XXXX bank whose position was that the transaction were valid. Time after time ACH transaction were made to XXXX by XXXX XXXX By taking this position XXXX XXXX can essentially stops any furher invetsigation by Capitol One Bank. This is a sweetheart agreement for culpable banks which allows them to maintain no fraud to occur. It is as if neither bank contributed to the other 's negligence. A Capitol One Bank employee suggested that my mother authorized the use of her account. My mother never authorized anyone to access her accoun! Do these banks have any internal control in place to provent this type of fraud. Apparently not! Every step of our inquiry with well rehearsed pablum. So the bottom line is my mother money is simply NOT SAFE IN THIS BANK. I truly beleive that they were counting on confusing a XXXX year old woman. I firmly believe that these banks deny XXXX % of all claims valid or not. The bottom line is teh only thing they care about is money. it simply begins and ends with mantra.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief