Consumer complaint received 2018-06-01
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account — Transaction was not authorized
Company: STATE FARM BANK, FSB (TX)

On Saturday XX/XX/18, I noticed that my checking account with State Farm Bank had been drained down to {$1.00} by fraudulent charges to XXXX XXXX in XXXX XXXX XXXX ( I live in Texas ). I immediately notified my bank and they said they cancelled my debit card. The said that I could not dispute the charges until they cleared, or that they might drop off entirely when the next batch ran. I attempted to contact the vendor as soon as I got off the phone with State Farm, but they were closed for the long weekend. 

The next morning I got a call from State Farm alerting me to fraudulent charges on my account, and the lady that I spoke with did not have a record of me reporting the fraud the night before. She said she would cancel my debit card, and when I told her that I had already done that she said that the card had not been cancelled. 

I was left over a long weekend with only {$1.00} to support myself, my husband and most importantly our XXXX year old son. 

I contacted the bank first thing on Tuesday morning because the funds had still not dropped off or cleared the account and they repeated that I could not dispute the charges until they cleared the account. They said there was nothing they could do, but hopefully the charges would either clear or drop off when the batch ran Tuesday evening at XXXX. I stayed up late to check and the charges were still " in process '' after the batch ran that evening. Additionally, I contacted the vendor ( XXXX XXXX ) on Tuesday and was told that the person who I would need to talk to was on vacation, but they would leave an urgent message for him. 

I contacted the bank again first thing on Wednesday morning because the charges still showed as " in process ''. I was told again that there was nothing the bank could do to help return our funds. She then told me that the funds were on hold until at least Friday, but could not tell me why that was. They told me that I needed to contact the vendor. When I responded that I had already contacted the vendor and that they should attempt contacting the vendor as the banking institution the chat representative replied that she couldn't help and abruptly disconnected the chat ( which I view as the equivalent of hanging up on a customer phone call ). I did call the vendor again on Wednesday and they researched the charges and XXXX with XXXX XXXX assured me that they had reversed the charges, but the funds would be returned to us when our bank released them. 

On Thursday morning the funds still showed as " in process ''. 

On Friday morning the funds still show as " in process ''. I contacted State Farm again and was given the same refusal to do anything to help. 

The total amount that was fraudulently removed from our account {$1800.00} which is everything we had except the {$1.00} left in the account. The State Farm Bank representative that I initially spoke with said whoever ran the charges kept attempting smaller and smaller transactions to ensure that they had effectively drained as much money as they could out of my account. I would have expected that to be a red flag to alert the bank of fraud. 

My husband and I both work multiple jobs to support our family so this is truly a financial disaster. We have had to rely on family to take us grocery shopping so that our XXXX year old son has food to eat and my parents had to pay his daycare tuition. We also had to delay paying our car payment and have postponed paying the premium on my husband 's health insurance because State Farm refuses to help get our money returned to us. This amount of money may be just a drop in the bucket for a large business like State Farm, but to us it was all the money we had.

State Farm has let down my family and has not done their duty to protect the finances of its  customers.