Consumer complaint received 2022-10-27
Company: Veem  Inc.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: International money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
STATEMENT : I am the owner of California XXXX based out of XXXX XXXX, California , USA. I do a lot of work with XXXX companies to buy bike parts and batteries. The main product line that I purchase is XXXX motors and parts. Their company also goes by XXXX, with motors being stamped either XXXX or XXXX. Very few people can purchase directly from XXXX. I need to buy them from a XXXX distributor. 

XX/XX/22 XXXX XXXX XXXX is one of those distributors. I had worked with them before to buy 30 batteries, without problems. My point of contact at XXXX is XXXX XXXX. I had established what parts I needed to buy and XXXX sent me an invoice. Shortly after, she sent an urgent update saying, " Very important please pay attention : Our financial department has just informed us that we can no longer receive any payment at the moment in our previous bank account ( i.e XXXX XXXX XXXX account ) due to tax audit and Government tax evasion verification ongoing in it from our past exports and as a result of that our financial department has instructed that we will be receiving all payments at the moment using our offshore trading bank account details as attached. Kindly disregard the previous invoice I sent you, attached here is a new invoice prepared using our offshore trading bank account details as instructed by our financial department. '' Let 's call this sender " Fake XXXX ''. 

Looking back, this is an obvious red flag, but at the time, there were multiple widespread news articles about XXXX banking going awry, so I accepted it and sent the payment. Many of these XXXX companies seem to have 2-3 different names ( like XXXX XXXX XXXX. Perhaps it's a case of Legal Name vs XXXX vs Parent/Affiliate name. So again, it wasn't a huge red flag to me that the payment confirmation went to " XXXX XXXX XXXX ''. 

For reference henceforth, the CORRECT account is XXXX. The SCAMMER account is XXXX XXXX The next day XXXX XXXX emails me, calls me, sends me a message on XXXX that I need to urgently cancel the payment. XXXX calls Veem XXXX, I call Veem for XXXX XXXX and speak with XXXX XXXX. Both XXXX and I were prompt to try and immediately reverse the funds. XXXX issues a recall. On the phone, Veem assures me that the chances of reversing a payment so early in the process and before it is completed is very high. 

Here 's where Veem royally messes up. Following the attempted upheaval of this payment, I get a confirmation FROM VEEM that the payment is now going to " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ''. The transaction ID is the same ( XXXX ) as is the amount {$11000.00}. This is exactly where I want the payment to go. I tell XXXX that if this is where the payment is going, then we can cancel the recall. Payment goes through. 

You can guess what happens next. If it went to XXXX, this claim would never have started. 

Payment goes to the scammer, and I scramble to try and reverse it, even after completion. I got mixed responses from Veem. Some told me that it could not be done, but one guy, XXXX XXXX, told me that we could reach out to the XXXX bank. He said that the XXXX bank would normally need approval from the beneficiary ( scammer ) to reverse an ACH payment, but in cases of obvious blatant fraud, the bank could override the recipient. I don't know if this is true or not, but in any case, neither the scammer nor the bank ever returned the funds. 

At one point, I had to email Veem 5 times over 35 days to get an update. It would look from the email transcript that for the first 40 days I was being blown off with short, useless answers, then for another 35 days I got only dead air. 

Their final two messages were as follows : XXXX : Thank you for your detailed explanation. This is to confirm that we tried the reversal of the funds linked to payment ID XXXX, however, despite our best efforts, the reversal unfortunately failed and we were not able to recollect the funds. Since this was a scam case external to Veem and there was no breach on your Veem account, Veem can not be held liable for this loss, we are sorry for the inconvenience this situation has caused your company. 


Me : What would have been my chances of recovering the funds if I kept the initial recall in place, before the transfer was complete? Your phone support person highlighted multiple times that I cancelled the recall initially. I guess I'm curious for the future what impact keeping this hold would have had on my chances of success. 


XXXX : The chances of recovering the funds on the initial recall would have been higher since the transfer was not complete at the time. I hope this situation does not get repeated for the sake of your company and to avoid any potential losses and frustration for you. 


XXXX, no doubt, chose his words more carefully than the Veem phone rep who told me with much greater certainty that I would have gotten the funds back if I hadn't cancelled the initial recall with XXXX XXXX. The phone rep said this over and over as if to assert that it was my fault, taking no note that if Veem hadn't sent me an erroneous message that the funds were going to " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX '', I'd have kept the recall. 

I have attached a very detailed an clear email history. Their conduct is contradictory, confusing, and unprofessional. It's also not unprecedented from them. They had previously double charged me {$17000.00}, causing my balance to dip negative on payroll day. Fortunately, beyond mere embarrassment to my employees, I faced no loss from this, and the second transaction was reversed. 

This is a financial company right?

Company public response: Company believes complaint caused principally by actions of third party outside the control or direction of the company
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation