Consumer complaint received 2020-01-16
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account — Transaction was not authorized
Company: KEYCORP (NY)

A few weeks prior to XXXX  I was looking around for someone to help me with a loan. I finally found a company ( who I thought was legit ) that said I was guaranteed a loan. They advised me that to make sure that I had a valid bank account, they would need to deposit funds into my account and I would just need to take those funds and put them on gift cards and to read it back to them so they can deposit my loan amount to me. I had to do this 3 times- the initial verification, the next day for my credit score and the following day after that. They somehow managed to convince me to send an additional XXXX of my own money but being severely convinced that I was getting this loan, I did what they asked. Bc I didnt receive anything I just gave up and decided I was just going to wait till tax time to just catch up on everything. Monday XX/XX/19, I checked my bank account and at that time I had a positive balance of roughly XXXX. At lunch time I checked my account again and I had a negative balance of XXXX. I immediately contacted key bank. The guy I spoke too stated he saw the transaction but it looks like it was reversed and by XXXX the following morning I would have my funds back into my account however suggested I go to the branch and close that account and reopen another one. The next morning came, tried to look at my account and my account had been frozen. I called and they stated that the fraud department noticed nothing normal activity and I had to go to the branch to verify who I am and they would unlock my account. Went to the bank and I could hear the lady in the fraud department state that they couldnt close my account bc I had a negative balance of roughly XXXX. I asked how bc I didnt make any purchase and no one used my card for anything. At that point o advised the banker of what happened. He told me bc of the amount its considered a federal crime and I would need to file a police report and bring it back so he can send it over to be investigated. I filed a report and brought it back. I didnt hear from anyone however I received printed copies of checks. I went back to the bank and told the banker that I didnt upload those checks and thats not my signature. He told me that fraud stated I did mobile check uploads to my account which I did not. I contacted my cell phone carrier and they sent me a message stating that during the time frame this all happened, there was no mobile check uploads from my phone or my app. I sent that to the banker who said he would send it to the investigator on the case. He also advised that they told him they could see uploads from 3 different states- Texas , Wisconsin and Virginia that was done on my account. I was asked to do an affidavit which I did. I still did not get a call or any update from the fraud department to ask me questions to get more in depth on what happened. No one asked me for the information I had. The website, loan documents from this company, text messages, the gift cards and the receipts from them - nothing. They closed my case and stated I did the uploads and Im responsible for paying the negative balance back. I am not responsible for any of that and did not upload any checks to my account just to pull them back out to be that far in the hole. I wouldnt have gone through all of this if I did indeed do this. I am beyond stressed with this and had to go back to my dr to get put back on XXXX  medication bc this has caused that much damage to me. Someone needs to reverse the negative balance and provide me the XXXX that I also filed a fraud case for along with the XXXX posit e dollars I had in my account prior to this mess happening. The only thing Im guilty of is being naive to believe a company was going to help me out so I could get presents for my daughters first XXXX.