Consumer complaint received 2024-09-26
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (MA)

On XX/XX/XXXX I received a Bank of America fraud alert regarding a charge that was made that looked suspicious. I responded No that it wasn't my charge. Within one minute of answering that I received a call from someone who identified them as being with Bank of America Fraud Dept. They asked me to verify who I was by asking my name, address. Upon doing that they explained that there was other suspicious activity on my accounts. Another charge trying to go through and many transfers. I said no to both as I had not even been on my online banking at all. I of course immediately logged in and there were over a dozen transfers made between all of my accounts. Two were business accounts, two were personal, one was my oldest daughter 's account, one my sons 's account and one my younger daughter 's account. Money had been transferred between all of these accounts going back and forth multiple times. The two business accounts never have any activity except for deposits every month and one payment a year to pay the annual report and a disbursement to myself and my two sisters every year within the first three months. These transfers included my son 's money going into the business, then back out. The business money going into his account and then to my personal account etc. All the these transactions were way outside my normal banking behavior. Of course having seen all this activity I of course believed I was speaking to a BOA Fraud employee. I even called the number back and it said " Welcome to Bank f America ''. They continued to tell me that there were over 5 wire transfers set up to go out and was that me. NO! I said. I never make wire transfers. They had me stay on my phone while they put me on hold telling me they were going to work on reversing the transfers. Every little bit they would come back on and say they were stopping the wire and that I would receive a code, which I did and of course assumed they needed it to stop the transfer. This went on for a bit. All the while I'd be put on hold and the very polite woman would come back on saying they were working on the reversal. If I got a code they asked me for it. There were over 5 wires they told me set to go out. A while later it appeared my iPhone was acting up. Additionally, several people told me they had tried to call me and it went to a generic mailbox ( mine is set up ). My phone would not ring when someone tried to call me. I thought this was weird and got concerned for the first time regarding the Bank call I got. I immediately went to call the number again and it was disconnected. I then realized this must have been a scam and immediately went to my local Branch ( Cohasset MA ) and worked with an associate there. When I got down there most of the wires had gone through. One had not. This fraud got {$55000.00} out of one business account. {$20000.00} out of my personal account ( including my kids as they had transfered the money between the accounts ), {$25000.00} from another business account and {$14000.00} from our business account that isn't even connected to the above. However, they were able to transfer money from that account to my personal account.

Whoever did this got into my accounts ( without my knowledge ), which is on the BOA platform, transferred money all around, made a charge that they must have known would give me a fraud alert ( again on the BOA platform ) and set up a bunch of wire transfers which I NEVER do. Not once did anyone from BOA get in touch with me as this was beyond suspicious activity. ( Nor with any of my kids whose money was being transferred without their knowledge as well ). Transferring money in and out of our business accounts into my kids accounts and vise versa. I went over everything with the fraud department and alll our accounts were put on hold. Not even a week goes by and BOA comes back and says that since I gave the codes they will not reimburse the funds. We are shattered and can not believe this can happen. Someone had gotten into my accounts without our permission and used that to get us to believe we were going to loose our money if we didn't STOP the wires. I did not wire any money. I am appealing with BOA and have asked the investigator to call me as I don't think she realizes someone had gained access to ALL of our accounts without permission/authorization. Additionally, I have been told by XXXX that it is possible for XXXX to be hacked where someone can divert phone calls which is exactly what I think happened as all of a sudden my phone started receiving calls again.