Consumer complaint received 2024-05-15 00:00:00
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan — Installment loan
Issue: Problem with a company's investigation into an existing problem — Problem with personal statement of dispute
Company: NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
State: OH

Complaint narrative:
Short Story : On XX/XX/year>, someone other than me applied for a loan of {$4900.00} using my Navy Federal mobile banking app. I disputed the loan with Navy Federal and was instructed to fill out and submit a Declaration of Forgery/Fraud form. I submitted that form on XX/XX/year>. Navy Federal denied my claim and told me I was responsible for the loan. On XX/XX/year>, I submitted a Security Appeal Form to dispute this fraudulent loan further. Navy Federal again denied my claim and informed me that I was responsible for the loan. The last four for the loan account in question is XXXX. The remaining balance for this loan is {$4000.00}. 
I have already contacted all three credit bureaus to dispute this fraudulent loan being reflected on my credit report. 

Long Story : On XX/XX/year> at XXXX, I received a phone call from Navy Federal. The phone number that appeared on my phone was XXXX. 
When I answered the call, a man named XXXX XXXX, who worked in the credit card section of Navy Federal, informed me that a pending credit card charge of {$500.00} or {$700.00} was flagged. I received the call to verify whether I used my credit card to pay a person named XXXX XXXX. 
When I told him no, I did not make that charge. He informed me that since my credit card was fraudulently used, it would have to be turned off, and Navy Federal would have to send me a new card. From that point, I went into my Navy Federal mobile app to look at my credit card activity. When I got to my credit card in the mobile app, I did not see any pending charges and told XXXX XXXX of that fact. He told me I did not see a pending charge because Navy Federal flagged the charge. 
From this point, he put me on a brief hold so that he could look at my credit card history to see if there were any other fraudulent charges on my credit card. 
When he returned to the call, he told me that I would receive a text message from Navy Federal containing a code. He explained that he needed that code to access my account and verify whether any other accounts had been wrongfully accessed. A few seconds later, I received a text message from Navy Federal with a code.

When I received the code, and before I gave him the code, I asked for his name again, and he told me his name was XXXX XXXX, XXXX. After he told me his name and XXXX XXXX, I gave him the code I had received in the text message. 
From this point, he put me on hold again, and after about five minutes or a little longer, he returned to the call and asked me if I recently applied for a loan of {$4900.00}. 
I told him, No, I did not apply for a personal loan! 
At this point, I was flipping out on the phone, and XXXX told me that my mobile app had been compromised and that he needed to reset it. When I clicked on the mobile app on my phone, I was locked out, and a password was required to access the app. When I told XXXX I was locked out of the app, he explained that he needed to give me a new password to gain access. 
The password he gave me was XXXX! When I entered that password into the mobile app, I could now reaccess my mobile app. 
Upon returning to my mobile app, I quickly noticed my savings account balance, which included the {$4900.00} loan amount. Before being locked out of my mobile app, the balance reflected in my savings account differed from that reflected after regaining access. 
When I told XXXX that there was, in fact, a new balance in my savings account, he told me that the loan I applied for had been approved, and the money had been put into my savings account. He said that since I had not applied for that loan, I needed to transfer the funds back to Navy Federal. 
He put me on hold again to set up a transfer account within my mobile app so that I could transfer the money back to Navy Federal. 
When he returned to the call, he walked me through the process of transferring the money back to Navy Federal, or should I say XXXX XXXX ( I cant recall the exact name ). 
After transferring the money back in the sum of {$4900.00} and {$4.00}, XXXX explained to me that all my accounts appeared to look good. 
I can not remember all the questions I asked XXXX from this point, but they ranged from how I could prevent scams like this from happening to me in the future and whether there were any alerts that could be added or noted on my account to avoid a reoccurrence. He answered my questions professionally and to my satisfaction. 
After answering all my questions, he explained that I would receive my new credit card in 3 to 5 business days and assured me that my current credit card was turned off and could not be used. 
After explaining all the details of the new credit card I was to receive, XXXX asked me if I had any further questions, which I did. 
After he answered my first question, we got cut off before I could ask him my second question. From this point, I called back using the same Navy Federal phone number that called me initially. After going through the regular voice prompts ( i.e., enter access number, debit PIN, etc. ), I got through to an actual Navy Federal operator. I asked to be connected to the fraud section, and after a brief hold, another Navy Federal operator picked up the call. After he introduced himself, I asked to speak to XXXX XXXX, XXXX. 
I am trying to remember the operator 's name. Still, he immediately told me that I had been scammed and that no Navy Federal employee would ever give a customer their full name and employee number. 
For the next 1.5 or 2 hours, I was on the phone with an actual Navy Federal employee, fixing everything the first Navy Federal employee, XXXX XXXX, did to me. Im almost sure my conversation with the Navy Federal employee was recorded, so Im going to assume that I do not have to go into detail about what was said or what he did to order a new credit card and fix my mobile app. What I found interesting was that this kind of scam is happening a lot, and when I was telling him about this experience, it felt to me, from his responses, that I was just another victim. 
This experience has taken a tremendous toll on my mental health. My credit score is excellent, and I worked hard over the years to get to the score I have and maintain it. I do not want this experience to affect my credit score, but I do not intend to pay any money to repay this loan. I have accepted that not doing so will or could affect my credit score negatively. My only hope is that in the future, if I need to finance something or apply for credit, the powers to be will see that Im perfect on everything else and base their approval on that fact. 
To be clear, I did not apply for or approve this {$4900.00} loan, which Navy Federal approved on my behalf.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation