Consumer complaint received 2021-05-22
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MI
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, a fraudster called in to Bank of America and had them refund two credit card payments to a checking account that they controlled. Bank of America allowed them to do this based solely on the fraudster possessing my credit card number, CVV, and billing zip code - i.e. information that is routinely used on any website for online transactions. The fraudster failed a text message authentication, and did not pass an app authentication challenge. The checking account to which the payments were redireced had never been associated with my credit card previously for any payment/etc, this was given to the agent at the time they requested the refund. 

The payments were redirected in two transactions. One was the {$1500.00} payment ( payment A ) and the other was for {$1700.00} ( payment B ). On the credit card bill, these are denoted as Reference Number XXXX ( the same reference number for both transactions ) on date XX/XX/XXXX. 

Additionally, due to the payment no longer being sufficient, I was charged interest in the amount of {$85.00} despite paying the statement balance plus an additional {$1500.00}. Also, due to the fraudster 's actions, my credit card was placed over the maximum balance and this has affected my credit report. 

The {$1500.00} was redirected to my XXXX checking account fairly promptly, however the {$1700.00} and the interest charge still have not been removed and the credit report has not been corrected. I have called repeated and been given the run-around numerous different times - it has been a struggle to even get them to open a case for it. The fourth call resulted in an agent saying they would process the transaction immediately and it would be refunded to my account within a week, it has now been 12 days since that call. 

I will detail the calls below but the short of it is that I need the {$1700.00} refunded to my checking account or removed from the statement balance, and I need the interest charge removed from my account, and I need the credit report corrected to remove the over-balance notation. At every call I have been redirected numerous times and had to repeatedly explain the situation over and over, in total it has taken more than 6 hours and been over a month and I still have not reached a resolution. 


On the first call, XX/XX/XXXX, I called in immediately after receiving the text authentication challenge. I was told that a fraudster had attempted to redirect my credit card payment but they had not succeded. 

On XX/XX/XXXX the charge showed up on the credit card activity in the website, and I called in. I told the agent about both charges, and they worked on them for a while. It appears that the {$1500.00} charge ( Charge A ) was resolved at this time. 

On a hunch I wanted to double-check that they got them both, and called in a second time on XX/XX/XXXX to confirm that they had got them both. It turns out they had not, and the agent said they had opened the claim at this time. 

On XX/XX/XXXX the {$1500.00} refund ( Charge A ) processed through to my checking account, and I initiated the payment back to the BoA account ( this posted in the statement ending XX/XX/XXXX ). 

I called again on XX/XX/XXXX to see what was up with the {$1700.00} charge ( Charge B ). I was basically told " do not call us, every time you call us it resets the timer for the investigation '', which is completely absurd and unreasonable, and I do not believe that to be a truthful statement at all. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I called in another time to see what the situation was, and at this time I was told they had not even opened an investigation into the {$1700.00} yet ( Charge B ) and that they would immediately do that and begin processing the refund. I was told that this could take up to a week, that was 10 days ago and I still have not received the refund.

The {$1500.00} charge ( Charge A ) was given claim number XXXX XXXX. For some reason the agent on the fourth call said he could not give me a claim number for Charge B despite beginning the refund process, and I still don't know why.

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