Consumer complaint received 2024-12-03 00:00:00
Product: Prepaid card — Government benefit card
Issue: Unexpected or other fees — 
Company: Comerica
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
On or about XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX my original claim # XXXX I went to use my bank card which is what it was called at the time now it is called a prepaid card, I called because my charges were declined, this was very much news to me as I had approx {$26000.00} in my account which was back pay from the social security dept . who also deposits approx {$1400.00} every month on top of that. It was told to me that I may have been a victim of skimming starting from the first day I used my card at the arch gas station by my home, there were 5 transactions at the same gas station the first day I used the card. There were multiple other transactions after in fact these people were taking out between $ XXXX {$500.00} per day for about 4 months, Only when my card was denied was I made aware of this, because this company ( Express Direct ) was not sending me statements and there was some issue with the online banking portal. 

As soon as I found out the money was missing I made several calls to Direct Express to get my bank statements so I could go over them to let them know which transactions were not mine. Which was most of them. I spent almost XXXX weeks trying to get these statements with Direct express. Once I finished compiling my list I called direct express back to report the fraud, this was on XX/XX/XXXX when I called I spoke to a woman it was on a XXXX XXXX, and after explaining my situation The customer service representative realized that the volume of transactions was more than she wanted to deal with, Im assuming her information would be tied to the first report filed under my account.

She only wanted to take 3 of the transactions and then gave me a fax number as well as an email address to send my breakdown to their fraud dept, but no matter how many times I requested it she refused to give me the fraud depts number or even transfer me to them. There were over 200 illegal transactions on my account. And even with limited knowledge of any of this I was quickly able to determine that these transactions were not mine and it was some younger people because the even used my account to send cash app transactions which I was unable to do myself as well as pay for a XXXX account and food from restaurants where the food was delivered to the people who stole my money. I have never been to in different states, I made multiple calls after that and eventually was told that they were not going to refund my money because the first XXXX transactions were ok as far as they were concerned and of course I was never allowed to speak with anyone who was in charge to dispute what they did or did not do and how they came Up with their findings, these requests were ignored and when I tried refiling the same Complaint I was told it was too late because 30 days had passed since the transactions were done and per company policy they no longer had to help me or refund me anything. I explained multiple times to multiple customer service reps that the lady who first took my complaint refused to take any more of the information regarding the other fraud transactions, it was as if they waited me out past their internal time frame So they would not have to help me or refund my money. fast forward to XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX I called to report additional fraud on my account where almost {$800.00} XXXX  per month was leaving my account it was a few months before I found out about this. And when I made a claim to it they said they would look into it, I called back 6 days later only to find that they had not done anything on or for my account and it wasnt even being investigated. I found out later that it was not being investigated and now I was again passed their 30 day window to even file a claim. 

I have also requested the findings report on my original issue where almost {$26.00} was stolen, Im a permanently XXXX veteran from the XXXX XXXX XXXX, and that money was paid to me because I was not paid a dime for almost XXXX years while I was Trying to get approved for XXXX and that was very hard to deal with, so I am very clear that I was being given the run around and the fact that I could not speak to the fraud dept only made this much harder, I have since become homeless as a result of losing my money and during that same time the bank was not doing their job which I thought was to protect their customers from things like this. I Instead they spent their time trying to find ways to put this back on me like I stole my own money, Social security set up this account on my behalf, so I didnt really have much choice in the matter and the times I tried closing my account and transferring my money out of my account this bank refused to give me the necessary information to initiate a transfer like the routing and account number which my other bank needed to send or recieve from them. I just found out about a class action lawsuit where direct express was found liable for the same kind of situation with another customer in the last year. 


This kind of behavior is unacceptable by any standard but I believe that many of direct express customers may end up feeling hopeless like myself and end up not doing anything. My life has been on hold since this happened, no one at that bank seems to care because they are assuming most people wont do anything because of their failures as a business and bank. 

Additional : all my information including the attached was sent to Direct express was sent to XXXX claim number # XXXX. The attached photos are of my account statement after I went through each transaction, there were over XXXX pages of transactions just from the month of XX/XX/XXXX. All of these were sent to Direct express. As well as multiple letters. 

Hopefully they will resolve this with me asap.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation