Consumer complaint received 2025-01-22 00:00:00
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem — 
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
Back in XX/XX/year> I was stressfully and frantically going through a very pivotal transition period in my life. My mother and father were leaving the country and I was moving out on my own with the roommates for the first time. This was a completely new experience for me And one that I had to navigate the loan due to my parents being out of the country by the time it was time for us to vacate our last property the house I grew up in. The only money I had in my account and in my pocket was for the security deposit and first months rent of the new place I was moving into, and at the time was living in my car for the month until the previous tenant whose room I was taking was out of the apartment. Once they gave me the greenlight, I directly sent the security deposit for my new room to the individual who had lived in their prior via XXXX with no problems or hiccups. His contact information was saved to my phone and it worked as it usually does. In regards to the first months of rent payment is where things started to get incredibly stressful. The payment process that my roommates have established is that XXXX of them is in charge of receiving our rent payments and then he himself sends it directly to our landlord and the property company I had sent him my rent amounts of {$1000.00} and was able to rest well, knowing Id finally settled into my new place for the first time accordingly, a couple of days went by and I received a call from my new roommate, telling me he hasnt yet received my first months rent payment the immediately sent my XXXX into my gut, but my initial thought was that it mustve been some sort of technical error on his end. Maybe he just hadnt received the payment yet or it was still pending, which was in fact, not the case. unfortunately for whatever reason, XXXX had saved the contact information of an old coworker of mine from over XXXX years back who shares the same first name, whose contact information XXXX havent had saved in my phone since working with him, on top of that my current phone device is not the one I had XXXX years ago. Its a completely new device. Now I had saved my roommates first and last name into the contacts of my phone and for whatever reason XXXX merged their recipient information into XXXX so it was my roommates, not name but my old coworkers phone number who I didnt dont even know he was literally only a coworker. So this random guy essentially had received my first months rent payment that I had worked so hard to save up and it was all I had had, and it immediately sent me into a nervous spiral. I had to explain the entire situation to my landlord and he understood he told me that he had had multiple problems with XXXX in the past and from here on out, it would be better if we just sent him the money directly which weve been doing. But I have reached out to the former coworker who received this payment multiple times, begging and pleading for him to return back the money my rent money the money that keeps me housed back to me in order to pay my rent. It was essential. The guy had kept ignoring and ignoring me. Which brought me to the poinXXXX of driving down from XXXX, California to XXXX XXXX. In order to confront him in our old workplace. To which he just hit in the back the entire time once he heard I was there, and there was no way for me to confront him on the matter. I had called my Bank of America prior to trying to confront him also begging and pleading with them that this was an unauthorized transaction that this was fraudulent and that I needed their help in order to get my rent money back this was critical. I made claim after claim almost a dozen times getting rejected every single time and when I asked why, regardless of how fraudulent this is they would tell me well its because XXXX tells you before you send money through their service to make sure that the recipient is correct because you cant get the money back which I am well aware of Ive used XXXX multiple times for multiple ventures but the cell service itself had duped me it combined XXXX contacts into XXXX just because they have the same first name ( XXXX XXXX and there was only XXXX XXXX thats been saved to my contacts in the last XXXX to 3 years the XXXX, who I used to work with who received my first months rent payment lied to his bank, telling them that it wasnt fraudulent and it was meant for him and refuses to send it back. Has not been in my contacts since I departed from that job and again I emphasize this is a brand new phone. Ive only had XXXX maybe a year I had to restart from scratch no former contacts. Were saved to this phone. And when I continue to go on my Bank of America app out of curiosity and just look at all of the recipients. It had saved. There are a plethora of numbers in there I dont even recognize from lifetimes ago this has caused me immense, physical, mental and emotional stress. My Bank of America has been completely useless in eating and helping me get my funds back the funds that I work so hard to provide myself with and honestly just feels like Ive been spat in the face this drove me into a deep, deep XXXX to the point where I just gave up entirely, but I dont want to do that. Nobody deserves to get away with just finessing somebodys livelihood like this. I had to call my parents overseas explain the situation to them and beg and plead them to spot me on my first months rent payment that was all I had and it was not the impression I wanted to make with my new roommates if somebody at CFPB please help me I would sincerely end immensely appreciate it thank you.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation