Consumer complaint received 2024-04-10
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Banking errors
Company: NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION (IL)

This complaint is concerning a transaction dispute that I submitted to Navy Federal Credit Union that I have reason to believe was not thoroughly investigated per the requirements of Reg E. 

On XX/XX/year>, I entered into a contract with XXXX XXXX, AKA XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX, under the premise that he is a licensed, insured and bonded contractor as represented to me in a solicitationfor business on the mobile application, XXXX. At this time, I contracted him to XXXX XXXX XXXX at my home at the agreed price of {$6000.00} with {$3000.00} due at the time of the contract. I paid the {$3000.00} on XX/XX/year>. This transaction is the subject of the transaction dispute and this complaint. In the days following, I learned that XXXX XXXX was fraudulently making statements about his licensure and, in fact, not licensed, bonded, or insured to conduct the work he was soliciting. At this point andto this day, he had not begun any of the contracted work regarding the XXXX. 

Having learned of this new information, I submitted the dispute to Navy Federal Credit Union by way of their online portal on XX/XX/year>. I described the above events and provided the following as documentary evidence : The contract between myself and XXXXXXXX XXXXThe entire text message thread between myself and XXXX XXXX. XXXX 's solicitations for business in which he represents himself to be " licensed, bonded, and insured '' Results from the Illinois Department of Financialand Professional Regulation which return no active licenses for XXXX XXXX 's name or business nameOn XX/XX/year>, Navy Federal Credit Union contacted me by email to notifyme that my claim was resolved and explained that the claim was not resolved in my favor because " You were charged for the amount you owed after receivingmerchandise or a service. '' Given the description of events and the proof that I provided, there is no logical way that Navy Federal Credit Union could have reached this conclusion after a thorough investigation of my claim. I paid for work to by done on my home by a licensed, insured, and bonded contractor which could not happen because XXXX XXXX is not licensed, bonded, or insured. I did not, in fact, receiveany merchandise or service and the {$3000.00} charge is a result of fraud as defined by both the criminal and civil definitions. Had Navy Federal Credit Union further contacted the merchant and asked to provide proof of licensure, insurance, and bond, he would not be able to do so. 

Regulation E offers consumers protections in scenarios such as this one where a transaction is the result of fraud. In this case, XXXX XXXX fraudulently represented himself to be able to provide a service that he was never able to provide and he used such fraudulent misrepresentations to induce the {$3000.00} transaction from my Navy Federal Credit Union account. This was evidenced by my own detailed and reliable description of events as well as the documentary evidence that I provided. 
Navy Federal Credit Union 's explanation indicates that no one at the Credit Union reviewed my statement of events or any of my documentary evidence. I suspect that they simply closed the dispute by providing some random, copy/pasted explanationwithout actually budgeting the time and manpower to a skilled professional to investigate the dispute per the provisions of Regulation E. 

An appropriate resolution would be Navy Federal re-opening the dispute, thoroughly investigating my claim taking into account my own description of events and documentary evidence to support, and contacting the merchant, which will support my claim that I never received any goods or services nor is he the professional that he claimed to be in order to fraudulently solicit the funds. Navy Federal Credit Union should further re-evaluate their dispute resolution procedures to ensure they are not auto-denying disputes to save themselves the time and effort of appropriately investigating them per the Regulations requirements.