Consumer complaint received 2025-03-14 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Closing an account — Company closed your account
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: WA

Complaint narrative:
Hello My name is XXXX XXXX My wife and I have become victims of scammers. On XX/XX/year>, my wife received a message on XXXX, with an offer from an XXXX to paint her portrait, specifically her figure against a landscape backdrop, promising to provide all documents of ownership and confidentiality. After viewing the XXXX 's page, it was clear that people used her services, as her social media page displayed her work. After some correspondence and resolving the technical details regarding the painting, my wife was promised a reward from the so-called customer of the painting. Of course, my wife agreed, since, living in XXXX, she had already had similar offers, and neither she nor I could have even imagined that this could be a scam. 
A few hours later, my wife received a photo of a check on social media, which she was supposedly supposed to deposit into her account ; this was supposed to be the so-called reward for using her photo for the painting. But since my wife and I share one account at Bank of America, and my account is the primary one, we deposited the check into my personal account, not even suspecting that we were being deceived and becoming victims. Account number - XXXX, Routing number - XXXX. After depositing the check, the correspondence with the XXXX continued, and everything seemed to be in order, but the next day we could not use our Bank of America XXXX ( and subsequently received a message that the account was blocked ). My wife began writing to the person on social media who had sent the check, but no one responded to the messages anymore, and then we realized that we had been scammed. 
During this scam, we were on vacation in XXXX XXXX. Upon returning home on XX/XX/year>, to XXXX, XXXX we immediately went to the police, told them everything that happened, showed them the correspondence on social media, a photo of the check, and filled out a report stating that we had been deceived and become victims of someone's scam. The police recommended that we contact our bank and that they would help us there. On the same day, XX/XX/year>, we went to a Bank of America branch and told them our story, how we had become victims of someone's scam. But the only response was that they could not help us in any way. They told us that we should call the Bank of America headquarters at ( XXXX ) XXXX. When we called there, we told our story again, and in response, we heard that they could not help us in any way, because we had deposited a fraudulent check into the account and thereby defrauded Bank of America. But in reality, we simply became victims in a foreign country ; we could not have even imagined that this was possible. 
And now my account at Bank of America is blocked because I, XXXX XXXX, was the primary account holder. My account is blocked for a very long time. I can not open accounts at other banks. All banks refuse to open an account for me, and this is a problem for my future life. I want to clear my name because my wife and I became victims of fraud. I want to be able to use banking services again. In this letter, I am providing you with all the evidence of this situation.

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 monetary relief