Consumer complaint received 2021-05-20
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — Government benefit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase or transfer — Charged for a purchase or transfer you did not make with the card
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (NJ)

Last Wednesday XX/XX/2021, I received an email from Bank of America stating that my account profile had been updated and if I hadn't made these changes, I was to call the bank. I had not made any changes to my account so I called Bank of America. The young gentleman on the phone told me that I needed to update my security question and password. He suggested that I set it to Where I Met My Wife with the answer being Autoland After that we ended the conversation. Yesterday at XXXX, my wife went to pay bills from my card and she noticed {$7000.00} had been transferred out of my account unbeknownst to us. I immediately contacted Bank of America and was shocked at how I was treated. At first they asked my my security question and what the answer was. The question they asked me was What town was your high school in and I thought, thats funny, that's not what I set up last week. When I gave them every possible answer I could think, they said they had to connect with a different department to verify me. The next department used my Social Security Number and DOB to verify my identity. I then began to explain to them that someone must have changed my security question and answer because thats not what I set up last week. The rep on the phone told me that the answer I chose to " What town was your high school in '' was the word XXXX XXXX. Thats when I knew right there someone hacked into my account, changed my info and took my money. I live in NJ, I've always lived in NJ. My high school was never located in XXXX XXXX so I would've never used that as my security login. Then the rep asked me for my email and phone number. My email and phone number that I used to set up this account with was XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX They said that the email and phone number on my account now doesn't match what I was telling them. They also said that it looked like the email address and phone number was changed last Wednesday, the same day they emailed me about my account being changed. I told them again that I did not make this transfer and someone stole my money. The new email address and phone number on the account was changed to XXXX and the phone number was a XXXX area code. For the record, I do not own aXX/XX/XXXXaccount and the only phone number I have has a XXXX area code. The rep then transferred me to someone else. The next rep proceeded to blame me for the missing money. She told me that it was me that changed the information with them and I made the XXXX transfer. I was blown away at her audacity. How is this possible I asked her? She admitted that my account had been changed last Wednesday at around XXXX however I didn't call them unto XXXX so how could I have changed my information. We went back and forth as she blamed me until I was transferred to fraud and claims. This rep proceeded to tell me that they weren't sure if they could recover the money and it might take 45 days. It took them only seconds to hack my account but I have to wait 45 days to get my money back. That money is how I pay my bills. In the meantime, my wife sent an email to the hacker at XXXX and someone actually wrote her back saying " who dis. '' We also were able to find out that the cell phone number goes back to a girl named XXXX XXXX living in XXXX XXXX, NY. I live in XXXX, NJ. Even after all of this information I was still told that I had to wait 45 days to hear anything back from them, which is ridiculous. I believe someone internally might have taken my money.