Consumer complaint received 2024-07-26
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Problem using a debit or ATM card
Company: Chime Financial Inc (NV)

On Saturday, XX/XX/XXXX, I noticed that my account balance on one of my bank accounts was much lower than it should have been. After panicking a bit, I opened up my banking app and looked at the charges on the account. 


While doing this, I noticed that there were dozens of charges that had been made that I didn't authorize, nor did I know anything about them. These charges were made on my Chime account, ending in XXXX, using my debit card ( ending in XXXX ). Upon contacting Chime and filing disputes for the unauthorized charges, the bank asked me to send evidence, if necessary. I thought that a police report would be as good anything, since it's official and legitimate. Below, I will itemize each charge, list the merchant, transaction date, transaction amount. The charges are listed below : Unauthorized Charges : XX/XX/scrub>XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  To be clear, I did NOT authorize any of these charges. I don't know what they are, the merchant names all seem sketchy, they are almost all international charges, and the merchants are impossible to get in touch with. Additionally, I noticed that in my Chime app, my phone number had been taken off the app. Because of this, I didn't receive any fraud alerts ( if any were sent in the first place - I'm not sure ). 

However, after filing my dispute on XX/XX/XXXX, within 12 hours, I got an email from Chime stating that " no error occurred '', and that they were denying my dispute and that the funds would not be credited to my account. I was confused by this, as there were more than XXXX charges involved, and it was a Saturday, which indicated that they didn't even try to contact these merchants. However, I gave them a call and filed a rebuttal, which supposedly restarted a 10 day deadline to provide a provisional credit. The agent and supervisor assured me that I was eligible, and that I WOULD certainly get the credit on or before XX/XX/year>. They also sent me an email, at my request, to show why the claim was denied. However, the email they sent just contained my intake form that was filled out the day of the initial claim being filed, and the evidence that I sent to them to help with their investigation. There was XXXX information about any investigation, no contact with any merchants, no communication with merchants, no evidence of a call/email/letter to ANY of them. But I decided to trust the process and let the rebuttal play out as described. 

I patiently waited for them, and I even sent additional evidence that showed multiple cases where someone logged into my account from Oregon and Texas ( I live in Las Vegas, and wasn't travelling at the time, so it couldn't have been me ). I also showed them that the phone number had been changed. I even showed them that the same individual ( s ) had hacked into another account of mine ( XXXX XXXX ) and used the XXXX XXXX debit card at two of the same merchants. These disputes were successful, and I was refunded for them, so I thought that might be valuable information when investigating whether or not I shopped at these merchants. 

However, on XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX day before they said that they would credit my account, I got an email that was identical to the first email, stating that " no error occurred '' and that my claim was denied. More importantly, the entire claim was denied- all XXXX charges. So they were basically saying that not just some of the charges were valid - all of them were valid - which makes XXXX sense to me. This surprised me, since I had provided the evidence on my end, but I decided to call Chime that same day to find out exactly why they had denied the claim. 

I called Chime and they said that they would be sending me an email with the reasoning for the denial. When they sent me the email with the " denial explanation '', it was exactly the same as the first denial information email- which was an intake form and " member evidence '' that I had sent them. There was no other explanation as to why they were denying my claim. At this point, I realize that something fishy is occurring, and that they are clearly in violation of Regulation E, which requires them to provide the evidence and reason that my claim ( and rebuttal ) were denied. 

I called Chime again that same day ( which was XX/XX/year>, to be clear ), and I spoke with a manager named XXXX. She said that she also noticed that they weren't providing any evidence, and that wasn't how it was supposed to go, and she told me not to worry and that she would be escalating my claim and that it would be figured out soon. I filed ANOTHER rebuttal with them, and they proceeded to push the expected date of a provisional credit back to XX/XX/year>. So, at this point, I filed the claim on XX/XX/XXXX. They denied my claim with no evidence on that same day, XX/XX/XXXX. I filed a rebuttal on XX/XX/XXXX, and was supposed to receive a credit by XX/XX/XXXX. They denied my claim on XX/XX/XXXX, and I filed another rebuttal that same day. So they have, three times, denied my claim without providing a single shred of evidence that they have contacted a single merchant. They have provided absolutely XXXX evidence, clearly in violation of Regulation E. 

The most frustrating thing about this ( other than the fact that I'm out over {$4000.00} ) is that when contacting Chime about your dispute, you can speak to an agent that just tells you that your credit will be provided by whatever date it's supposed to be credited. You can ask to speak to a supervisor, who will tell you the same thing. But when I ask any question whatsoever about WHY my claim is being denied, they won't tell you anything. They just say that they can send the reasoning via email, and they send the exact same email that you received before, which for me, as stated before, doesn't contain any evidence of their investigation. 

I've asked to speak to the " investigation team '', who, according to Chime, is the only team that can decide to provide a credit. When I ask to speak to someone on this team to question their lack of evidence and potentially provide any information they might need, the Chime representatives say that the investigation team can't be contacted via email or phone. When I ask to have one of them call/email me, they won't request it for me. So there are repeated denials with no evidence and no accountability. This is clearly illegal as per Regulation E, and I've given them plenty of chances to rectify this issue. I will be proceeding to the arbitration process if it's not taken care of within two days of the submission of this complaint, but I wanted to make sure to send in the complaint so this doesn't happen to others in the future. I've attached all relevant documentation to this complaint, and I've tried to be as precise in my explanation as possible, so hopefully it will make sense when looking at the attached documentation. 

Thank you, XXXX XXXX