Consumer complaint received 2023-01-03
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (VA)

XX/XX/2022 {$78.00} charge by XXXX XXXX {$2.00} foreign transaction fee My issue is with the Bank of America credit card fraud process. 
1. I have a transaction that I want to dispute that is obviously fraud. I am unable to do so while the transaction is pending, even though this was suspected prior to the charge clearing. this is my first issue with the process.

2. Once the charge clears and is sitting on my CC bill, I have to request that a customer service rep " put in a fraud claim request '' that will kick off processes that work against me.

3. The initiation of the " fraud claim request '' immediately locks up my checking and savings accounts for 24-48 hours and initiates a new Credit Card to be issued. ( because, as communicated to me by the bank, " Fraud '' has occurred ) 4. Regardless of the identification of Fraud, which occurs while I am on the call with the customer service representative, and which imposes significant costs to me ( locked accounts, multiple CC # changes in web sites and recurring online services over the coming weeks ) my request will be sent for review to a separate group. I am told I am free to call them, but they will not join the current call to help clarify how the adjudication will work. 

5. After my call ends, my request is adjudicated and a " fraud determination '' will be then made which will determine if the Bank sees any evidence of Fraud and thus a willingness to reverse the charges.

6. My issue is that I am a decade+ gold customer per their marketing, and I no longer have ANY incentive to report fraudulent charges because I incur all the cost, and they have an opaque process that gives me no confidence that I will get my money back. As a result, I would rather the fraudsters keep my stolen money than have to go through all of the bank processes, account freezes, and card number resets...

7. I did not initiate the " fraud claim process '' this time. My decision not to initiate the " fraud claim process '' was influenced by a previous experience where the Bank of America Fraud team determined that a fraud event was not fraud ... and I was not reimbursed approximately {$230.00} dollars that was stolen from me. 

8. The process is geared to prevent them from paying me ( and to lower their operating costs at my expense ). The process makes no sense because if I have called an told them there was fraud, and they have not swapped out may card immediately on disclosure, the reality is that they don't care about fraud risk, only the risk that I might call back at a cost of what ... $ XXXX dollars per minute? Their actions do not remove ANY risk of systemic fraud, but in fact they are penalizing their customers to remove the risk of another customer service call! 


BACKGROUND, IF NEEDED XXXX. The original fraud occurred when I was trying to make an online purchase, the website redirected unexpectedly to XXXX and then redirected back to the site I was on to present me with a transaction complete page, only this site never actually charged me for anything. I noticed the redirect, so checked my XXXX for confirmation emails, and then the bank account to see if my intended purchase had gone through. It had not. 

2. Because of the odd behavior, I kept checking my CC account and later noticed a completely different value charge from XXXX ( the redirect site I observed ) for XXXX. I tried to have the transaction flagged, but could not because the statement showed the transaction as pending... 

3. I waited a couple days, tried again through the app, the website, and finally called to get it dealt with, only the process is a disaster for customers.

4. I put in a request to the XXXX site to have them reverse the change and to show proof of what i ordered and they delivered. I also searched to see if the redirect website had any other complaints and found this note related to a different retail site that also redirected to XXXX https : XXXX so I don't think I am crazy ... I am only unable to get my bank to take responsibility without forcing me to pay a high cost.