Consumer complaint received 2018-08-02
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Banking errors
Company: CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (TX)

I was a victim of a tech support and refund scam. The complaint is against the bank, Capital one, but i will give the entire back story for a full understanding. 

On XX/XX/18, I had a pop up come onto my desktop computer screen saying my computer was infected. I was worried because I have had viruses before, so I called the number from the pop up, talked to someone with a heavy XXXX accent with supposed names XXXX XXXX and a tech XXXX XXXX. I ended up getting some lifetime protection or 5-year protection for XXXX $ and they asked for my capital one account and routing number instead of my actual credit card number. I had to check my email to accept the charge since the fraud defense flagged it as unusual. They said it was just because they were outside the US. I was a little skeptical at first, but they did what I thought was some legitimate work at the time. Later I realized that they had showed some things in the command prompt and some error files that are common to any computer and they installed a free programs, ccleaner and malwarebytes. 
Starting around XX/XX/18, they called from XXXX ( XXXX Arizona ), now assuming it was a spoofed number, saying the company XXXX was going out of business and they wanted to refund the XXXX-dollar charge. Said they needed to remote access my computer to remove software. I told them to call in the morning before work. The next morning around XXXX XXXX on Friday XX/XX/18, I answered the XXXX # and spoke to one person first. Soon after speaking to the first person I was transferred to someone else, XXXX XXXX. The name sounds fake since the guy had a heavy XXXX or middle east accent. Looking back on it now, I am very positive that the XXXX XXXX was the same person as the XXXX XXXX or XXXX XXXX from the initial subscription. I say that is because his voice sounded the same and I was skeptical the first time and the way the guy assured me both times was practically the same, but I did not realize it until afterward. He said to download teamviewer and anyplace control to which he got remote access. He did something in the command prompt I think. Then asked me to check my online banking to see if the refund had gone through. I was skeptical since they were remotely accessed and questioned it, but he assured me everything was okay. I signed in and saw no refund charge and signed out immediately. I got paid that same day in the amount of XXXX, adding to my checking balance of XXXX and about 30 minutes before they called I had transferred XXXX from my checking to savings. So, my savings went from XXXX to XXXX $ and my checking was XXXX plus the remaining XXXX to give me about XXXX $ in my checking account. I believe he saw that my user name and password was auto filled in to my browser. He said he was checking something on his side with the software that must be done while connected to my computer. He setup a black screen on my computer from anyplace control or teamviewer so I could not see what was happening. I started getting very skeptical. Then I checked my bank account from my phone briefly and saw that XXXX had been transferred out of my savings account presumably by him. I started freaking out and transferred the XXXX back into my savings account from my phone. I started yelling at him and then he brought my screen back and he explained that he had accidently added XXXX to my checking account. He showed my online banking account on my screen. The XXXX had transferred back to my savings ( by me ) so my savings showed a total of XXXX ( like it was before ) and my checking had XXXX $ instead of just XXXX, showing he had added money to my account. At this point my mouse was blinking fast and I had no control over the mouse. He started explaining that I would have to pay them back money since they had accidently added it to my account and of course I refused and said this is crazy. Then he got angry and started threatening that he would just take all my money and then he showed my savings account with XXXX $ and there was still XXXX in my checking. At this point, he must have manipulated something because I had originally had XXXX $ total with both accounts. He explained my money ( XXXX ) was transferred to an XXXX XXXX  suspense account and that I would need to go buy XXXX gift cards totaling value of XXXX to repay the money and then he would release my money back. Of course, I argued that if he can take it out then he should be able to add the right amount back in and he made up something about how they cant do that. He said I would still get the refund XXXX plus XXXX for the inconvenience, thats why he needed XXXX back even though he added XXXX. I argued and was freaking out yelling then he started getting even more mad and showed me both of my accounts on my screen with XXXX . I am not sure if it was a fake screen or if it was real, but It did look like the normal online banking screen that I used all the time. On my bank account history, it did not show going to zero and then back up. He said if I go get gift cards and read them off to him, I would get my money back from the XXXX suspense account. He explained going to the police would not get my money back, which I believed. He explained if I tried to call the bank, he would leave my account at XXXX . Of course, I realized this might be a scam, but I felt I had no choice because he showed my accounts empty at XXXX $ and this was my only hope of getting it back. He made me stay on the phone as I drove to XXXX. Made me honk my horn to prove I was driving. I told him on the phone when I got to XXXX so he added money back into my account right then. He said not to try anything like ATM or withdraw or even logging into my bank account because he would see the presence and immediately transfer money out. At the time, I believed this was possible since he had shown my money go from around XXXX to XXXX nearly instantly and I do not know a lot about wire transfers or that sort of thing. Had to stay on the phone the hole time in XXXX but told me to put phone in pocket while on speaker. At XXXX in XXXX, I bought XXXX XXXX $ gift cards with value of XXXX and read them off to him in my car in the parking lot. I kept the gift cards and receipts even though he told me to cut them and trash them. Tried buying more gift cards but I had reached my debit limit and he told me to call bank to increase it to XXXX. I called the bank while in car at XXXX parking lot. He gave me a XXXX number that he would call from and started calling me from that number while I was on hold with the bank. After raising my debit limit, I drove to a 2nd XXXX in XXXX. Tried buying more gift cards but card was declined still, not sure why, maybe it takes time for debit limit increase to process. At this point, he said I still owed XXXX. Then he told me to do a cashiers check for XXXX from my bank, said I could keep the other XXXX. I drove to my capital one bank in XXXX and used the information he gave me to get a check ( Bank : XXXX, Name : XXXX XXXX, Routing:XXXX, Account:XXXX, swift : XXXX ). He again told me not to check my account from app or ask the bank to check account or my funds would be taken. Took the check to chase bank and deposited. Made me send pictures of check, receipt, receipt with word nonrefundable written on it, receipt ripped into 4 pieces, and picture ID front and back. Said they needed picture ID to withdraw the money ; it was proof that they knew me, not sure if that was the purpose or if it was for identity theft. Got home around XXXX or XXXX XXXX, and he said he needed to remote access my computer again. He somehow added XXXX more into my account which was apparently another mistake. He showed my screen with around 5,400 even though later my bank history never said that amount. I was furious, but he assured it was an accident and the last thing before I get my money. He said he needed to wait until the check cleared in the morning to refund my XXXX that was owed to me ( XXXXXXXX from my savings, and XXXX for refund and inconvenience ). He told me to go to bank again, so I did that late afternoon and withdrew XXXX. The next day on Saturday XX/XX/18. He called at XXXX XXXX from the XXXX number and said they had got the XXXX from chase and that I needed to repay XXXX in gift cards then I would get my money back from the suspense account. I went to XXXX in XXXX off precinct line and got XXXX XXXX $ gift cards payed in cash. Then read off to him and he said he was working on the refund. Eventually after me continually calling back he answered around XXXX XXXX  and said It should be done within an hour for processing. I checked in an hour and there was only XXXX in checking and XXXX in savings. Kept calling back and he had blocked me. 
In conclusion, right before the incident started which was after I transferred most of my paycheck into my savings account, I had XXXX in savings and around XXXX in checking. I had sent them XXXX in XXXX cards paid by debit card on Friday XXXX in the morning, then XXXX in a cashiers check Friday afternoon on XX/XX/XXXX and then XXXX withdrawn late afternoon on Friday XX/XX/XXXX used to buy XXXX cards the next morning Saturday XX/XX/XXXX. A total lost value of XXXX. By Saturday afternoon, I ended up having XXXX in savings and XXXX in checking and I had spent the remaining discrepancy on gas and food while I was driving around to all the places. At the end of it I felt extremely stupid and angry because of this entire loss, but I did not feel that it was 100 % my fault. I went and withdrew all my remaining XXXX dollars. I called the police and made a police report, which took about 45 minutes. Then I called capital one to tell them everything that happened. They were able to put a freeze on my account and said they would send the info to an investigator to look at Monday. They started a separate dispute on the XXXX in debit purchases through the debit claims department, gave a provisional credit but later retracted the credit. They could not stop the cashiers check that was done the afternoon prior. I asked capital one to flag the account that I had sent the XXXX cashiers check to as fraudulent and/or contact chase to do that and they did not do anything. I tried calling chase to ask them to do that, but they would not since it was not my account. I was able to dispute and recover the initial charge of XXXX which i am grateful for. I waited about 3 weeks and then called the investigator on XX/XX/XXXX and left a voicemail ; he called back and I missed the call. Then I called on XX/XX/XXXX and again XX/XX/XXXX with no answer and left voicemails. Then I called again on XX/XX/XXXX, left a voicemail and he called back. We finally got to speak about the investigation. He denied any responsibility in capital ones part for my loss. He stated that by giving the scammer remote access to my computer, knowing that my banking info was auto saved, that I gave this scammer expressed authority into my account. This is the first root cause of the theft which led to the scammer to gain access to my bank account without my consent. Once the scammer was in my bank account, they were able to somehow manipulate my account and inflate my balance to make it appear like my account had nearly 32,000-33,000 $ when it should have only had XXXX . If you look at my bank statements, it will show XXXX was transferred from savings to checking twice in a row which would have been impossible since I only had XXXX in that account. Its like the transactions are out of order. Furthermore, the transactions for when I transferred XXXX of my paychecks to savings before the scam even started are out of order. The second root cause of this problem was that capital ones system was able to by manipulated by the scammer. The scammers ability to inflate my account as shown on the bank statement and henceforth Capital ones inability to maintain the account showing the correct balance was the only reason I was tricked into sending money to the scammer in the hopes of getting my money back. The investigator justified this by going back to the first root cause of expressed authority and outright ignoring the second root cause. When I finally got him to say something about the second root cause, he would not recognize any responsibility due to capital ones system being able to be manipulated by the scammer without being detected because he said, inflating balances is a common problem in the banking industry and this is what hackers do. 
I feel that it is insensible and illogical to outright ignore the second root cause only because the first root cause overrides it and because hackers inflating accounts is a common banking problem. I think capital one should take at least partial responsibility ( half of the total loss ) since their system was manipulated by a hacker, which was the root cause of why I was tricked into sending money to these people in the hopes of my money being returned. I feel that capital one should have put forth more effort to flag or dispute the cashiers check transaction or that persons chase account, contacting chase to dispute the account as fraudulent. It seems like their system should also recognize something fraudulent is going on when a transfer was made on the computer and app in close succession or at least recognize that the account is inflated and not give access to funds until it is resolved.