Consumer complaint received 2018-05-18
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Problem using a debit or ATM card
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION ()

I hope you can help me with my situation. Bank of America ( later BoA ) sent out a new safer debit card ( with a chip ) to me without informing me. This card was intercepted before it reached me. A person other than me was allowed to activate it, and the result was over USD 20,000 in fraudulent charges before I discovered the fraud. BoA says that they are not responsible and that I should contact the police. I dont understand how to proceed. Should I contact a police station and say that BoA has failed to protect my savings and has lost my money? What could the police officer do? I have not lost anything, as the card was never in my possession, nor do I know at what point it might have been intercepted. For all I know, it could have been stolen before it was mailed out from BoA by a BoA employee.. Regardless, I think BoA should stand up to their failed practices and procedures and take responsibility without police intervention.

Below are the details as I know them ( BoA surely has more details but are not willing to share them despite several calls, and even what they share, they refuse send out in any kind of written format despite request to do so ). 

I have been living overseas for about 7 years, with my familys latest assignment location being XXXX, XXXX. I continue to have an account with Bank of America ( for probably 17 years now ). Since I moved overseas, I have not used my BoA checking account or debit card for any daily transaction, and I do not get my salary there. I do use it occasionally for some payments that are in USD ( often air tickets or other travel related transaction ) and to handle investments that I have in the USA, and also when we travel back to the US ( typically one week per year ). I have attached ( Attachment 1 ) my account statement starting from XX/XX/XXXX up to XX/XX/XXXX, when I discovered the fraudulent transactions. Below are the details of all of my payment transactions in this period : XX/XX/XXXX : No transactions. 
XX/XX/XXXX : My wife ( XXXX XXXX, who is also on the same checking account ) visited the US ( New York ) for a few days for work and used her BoA debit card for three shopping transactions, and I used my debit card to pay for air tickets from XXXX to XXXX and back. 
XX/XX/XXXX : I set up a recurring payment with XXXX XXXX for cable TV for part-time renters for a condo we have in XXXX. 
XX/XX/XXXX : I paid income taxes, and there was the automatic payment for XXXX XXXX. 
XX/XX/XXXX : I purchased air tickets, two excursions, and a transfer from XXXX to XXXX for an upcoming trip to XXXX. 
XX/XX/XXXX : Only the automatic payment for XXXX XXXX XXXX : Only the automatic payment for XXXX XXXX. 
XX/XX/XXXX : Only the automatic payment for XXXX XXXX. 
XX/XX/XXXX : No transactions at all XX/XX/XXXX : No transactions at all XX/XX/XXXX : I set up another automatic payment for XXXX XXXX, and I send in a tax return check to be deposited to my account. 

When I later checked on whether the tax return check I mailed in had been deposited to my checking account I discovered that in addition to the transactions listed above, and initiated by me, there were eleven transaction totaling US {$23000.00} between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, and between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX that were not made by me. ( In addition, there were US {$690.00} in international transaction fees, pocketed by the bank I assume, for these transactions. ) I think it was XX/XX/XXXX, when I initially called BoA from XXXX to dispute the fraudulent transactions. Because of the time difference, I called towards the very end of their business hours, which I think is the reason why the person I talked to was in a hurry, and despite assuring me that he captured all of the transactions I mentioned, he missed including some of them in the claim. This resulted in me having to call the bank again and start another claim for the missed transactions. Also, I later learned that one transaction were not added to the original claim because they were made with a different debit card number, so a third claim had to be created. 

What I learned after several calls to BoA was that BoA had decided to mail out a new debit card to me, without telling me about it. I assume it would have been sent to my XXXX XXXX in XXXX, where it should have been forwarded to my XXXX address. I never received the card and did not know to expect it as I had not been informed of a new card being issued, and my existing debit card was not about to expire. 

While my debit card ( one with my picture on it ) was locked up in my safe at home, someone else received this new debit card ( which had the same number as my exiting card, and security chip, which ironically, I was told is supposed to make it more secure ) was allowed to activate the card and went on a shopping spree with it. Furthermore, the same person ( I assume ) was able to request another debit card to be sent to his/her address in the XXXX, and this card was also successfully activated and used for one transaction. During another call to BoA claims department I was told that it is indeed possible for someone other than me to do multiple contacts with the bank and to collect sufficient information for activating a card and impersonating me to get transactions approved. I understand that the person was able to set up a travel notice, and call BoA to authorize a fraudulent transaction at a store. I also learned from me online banking that some had been able to add a fake XXXX postal address to my savings account ( although not my checking or credit card accounts ) and to add a fake email address ( my valid email address was however also still on record ). BoA would not tell me what information they had sent to the email address or the mailing address, BoA also is not telling me the sequence in which someone was given increasing amounts of access to my accounts. 

I want to note here, that when I initially made the claims and called BoA, I was not aware of BoA having sent the new card and was under the assumption that maybe someone had been able to duplicate my card. Initially BoA returned the money to my account for some of the fraudulent transaction and also reversed the associated international transaction fees. However, after a while regarding the first two claims ( claim # s XXXX and XXXX ), I learned that they had been denied because an investigation discovered that the lost debit card # XXXX, issued sometime in early XX/XX/XXXX, and used for the fraudulent transactions in the claims, was used by me for transactions in XX/XX/XXXX. This conclusion was later proven incorrect. The investigator had not realized that I have never lost or misplaced my debit card issued in XX/XX/XXXX with the same number, XXXX, and I used this card to purchase travel activities for my upcoming trip in XXXX. The investigator simply did not know that replacement cards are issued with the same number! 

I assume the replacement card would have had a different expiration date, which BoA would have been able to differentiate the transactions by. I explained this to BoA over the phone, and they asked me to send the same to them via fax to clarify the matter ( please see the fax content in Attachment 7 ). 

BoA is also saying that since I had logged in to my online banking earlier in the summer, I should have noticed the fraudulent transactions at that point. I dont doubt that I logged in one or possibly more times before I actually noticed the transaction. The reason I imagine for not noticing transactions on my account is that I had my debit card locked up in my safe and did not think there was any need to review any transactions, as there would should have been none. 

BoA appears to be under a perception that I might have made the transaction myself and they sent me a copy of a signed transaction receipts from one of the fraudulent transactions ( attachment 6 ). This clearly shows a signature that in not even the slightest way resembles my signature, which BoA has on record. It is not even an attempt to write my name, so I dont know why BoA decided to send me the signature copy, and why they chose to send me just that one. I can also easily show and prove that I was, in fact, pretty much on the other side of the planet, on sailboat off the coast of XXXX, XXXX, during the time of the first fraudulent transactions ( XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX ). On this trip to XXXX we spent one week on a sailboat in the XXXX with another family, and from XXXX, on this trip, we also visited the XXXX to see relatives. At every point when we checked in for a flight, or checked into hotels, we were identified by our passports, and hotels and the yacht charter company would even have made copies of our passport during time of checking. We also had a skipper from the yacht charter company on the yacht at all times with us, and a GPS tracker on the yacht itself proving exactly where we were on the dates in questions. 

I have attached our flight information, showing that we flew out XX/XX/XXXX from XXXX and returned XX/XX/XXXX ( Attachment 2 ). I have also attached our airport transfer confirmation from XXXX to XXXX ( Attachment 3 : Detail along with driver contact info can also still be found here : 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 ) ; and the email string of my wife confirming our Yacht Charter ( Attachments 4 and 5 ). These have contact information for the service providers, if BoA wishes to verify directly with them. 

During the second period of fraudulent transactions ( XX/XX/XXXX ) I was in the XXXX XXXX area, but due to the traffic conditions in XXXX, I spend most days in my home office, and do not leave the property. If BoA would provide the exact times of the transactions, I am certain I can prove from our house security records ( where our 24h security detail logs in every time a family member leaves or returns to the property ) that I have been at the house during the time of, if not all, then at least most of the transactions. 

BoA also claimed on one call that a reason to deny at least one of the claims was that too much time had passed between the transaction and me noticing and reporting it. I dont believe I have the responsibility to keep constantly checking with a bank if they have happened to send out debit cards I have not requested, or if they have in some other way compromised the security of the funds I have trusted with them. Regardless, even if I would have noticed the fraudulent transaction earlier ( say, 30 days after the first transaction ), all transactions with the first card BoA sent out happened within a period of less than one month, so they would not have been able to prevent the remaining transaction from happening, nor do I think they would have had any better of a chance to recover the money that was lost. 

It is my opinion that I need to be able to rest easy at home and trust that my life savings are indeed safe at a bank ( which by the way continues to claim that they offer XXXX $ liability for fraudulent transactions, and actually make a point of mentioning this twice on the pamphlet they send out along a new debit card ( see Attachment 8 ) ) especially if I have not lost or misplaced my cards and have not compromised my online banking login information or my social security number. The primary service I expect from a bank is to keep my money safe and BoA failed in delivering this to me. They not only lost my money but failed to live up to the promises they made. BoA appears to have a policy to make cards easy to activate, so that they can start collecting interchange fees on transactions, and they deem it an acceptable loss to have some cards activated by criminals. I hope you can help me, please!