Consumer complaint received 2025-03-11 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: SOFI TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I received unsolicited and uninitiated by me texts from SoFi stating that SoFi was sending me a 6 digit code to access my SoFi accounts. I wasnt trying to get into my account at this time and I thought it was odd, so this same day, XX/XX/XXXX, I called Sofi to let them know that I was receiving these unusual texts. I was instructed to see if I could log into my account at this time which I could not. 

SoFi informed me that they would reset my login so that I would be able to login to my account once again Then, on XX/XX/XXXX, I was finally able to log into my SoFi account I noticed that my SoFi savings and SoFi checking accounts had both been compromised. I was not informed about this by Sofi, but rather I found out about this on my own. In my past experiences when working with financial institutions, such as XXXX and XXXX, whenever there has been fraudulent activity on my accounts at those financial institutions, those institutions have reached out to me as they monitor my account. However, this was not the case for me with SoFi. Again, I discovered the fraudulent activity in my accounts, even though the fraudulent activity was so uncharacteristic of what my typical activity on my account. Im very surprised and disappointed that this was not picked up by SoFi. 



Between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, there were 10 fraudulent transactions across my SoFi savings and checking accounts. 



There were 4 transfers from my SoFi savings account to my SoFi checking account. These 4 fraudulent transactions did not result in a net debit for either my SoFi checking or savings accounts and so nothing further needs to be done for those 4 fraudulent transactions. 



However, there were 6 fraudulent withdrawals from my Sofi savings account that occurred. Please see the annotated and uploaded SoFi Saving account XX/XX/XXXX statement that I have included here in my CFPB complaint for the details of these 6 fraudulent transactions. 

These 6 fraudulent transactions were from the following institutions : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I do not have an account with any of these above institutions and I did not set up electronic transfer to these accounts from my SoFi savings. Nonetheless these 6 fraudulent transactions occurred resulting in a debit of approximately {$70000.00} from my SoFi savings account. That is a huge amount of money. I called SoFi on XX/XX/XXXX about this fraudulent activity ( this is the same day that I first noticed the fraudulent activity ) and spoke with a SoFi representative from their security department for almost an hour. I was told that this fraudulent activity would be investigated and that I would have the fraudulently withdrawn money returned to my account. However, now over six weeks later, only one of these fraudulent withdrawals has been refunded to my account. The 1 fraudulent withdrawal that has been returned to my SoFi savings account was a fraudulent XXXX withdrawal of {$40000.00}. 



However, there are still 5 fraudulent withdrawals that have not been returned to my SoFi savings account, totaling {$29000.00}. Again, please see the XX/XX/XXXX statement account for my SoFisavings account to see the details of these 5 fraudulent withdrawals totaling {$29000.00}. I have reached out to SoFi on multiple occasions about this fraud. Please see below for the dates that I have called SoFi, the length of time I spoke with SoFi for each call and what my call was about about : XX/XX/XXXX - 6 mins : I could not get access to my online Sofi account and and I asked Sofi to reset my online access so I could check my accounts as I was concerned that maybe something odd may be going on. 

XXXX - 48 mins : I discovered fraud of approximately {$70000.00} on my SoFi savings account and I spoke with Sofi at length including their security department about this fraud and I was told that Sofi would investigate this and address it and return my funds XX/XX/XXXX - 11 mins : I called to follow up with Sofi to see if they needed anything special from me/ how I could aid the process of getting my fraudulent funds back XX/XX/XXXX - 8 mins : follow up about the fraud on my account. I asked for an update on the investigation and was told the investigation was ongoing XX/XX/XXXX - 6 mins : follow up about the fraud on my account. I asked for an update on the investigation and was told the investigation was ongoing XX/XX/XXXX - 20 mins : follow up about the fraud on my account. I asked for an update on the investigation and was told the investigation was ongoing XXXX - 1 hour and 40 minutes : very lengthy call to Sofi asking to speak with a supervisor as I wanted action on my account and wanted some concrete help and follow up as I had not gotten any update / help to date XXXX - 21 minutes : I called Sofi to ask them to block my accounts ( at this point, I had new SoFi accounts as my old accounts had been closed because of the fraud that occurred on my original Sofi accounts in late XXXX ). I asked Sofi to block my new accounts, that had only been open less than two weeks earlier, because I was seeing the same pattern of activity that happened the first time fraud occurred on my SoFi accounts in late XXXX. 

XX/XX/XXXX - 20 mins : follow up about both the old and new fraud on my accounts. 

XX/XX/XXXX - 22 mins : follow up about both the old and new fraud on my accounts. 

XX/XX/XXXX - 63 mins : follow up about both the old and new fraud on my accounts. I repeatedly asked/ practically begging for concrete action to be taken on my account and for me to get help with resolution on both the old and new fraud as I had not gotten any resolution on either fraud, since I initiated this whole process back in late XXXX, except for the one XXXX fraudulent withdrawal of {$40000.00} that was refunded to my account. Everything else has not been refunded to my account.

Once again, Sofi has not reached out to me about this fraud on my account. I have been the one that has repeatedly and systematically reached out to them. I feel that Sofi has been negligent in their lack of communication with me about this issue and negligent in their lack of action on this fraudulent activity on my account. I have my phone records as proof for the above dates and times that I called SoFi and spoke with SoFi. Every time, I called SoFi, after my initial call with them on XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX, XXXX, I asked Sofi for status updates on my account and every time I was told that the investigation was still going on and that nothing could be done for me and that my money had not yet been returned ( except again for the XXXX withdrawal of {$40000.00} that had been refunded to my SoFi account. Once again, SoFi has not called me about this fraudulent on my accounts. They have not emailed me either. Their blatant and glaring lack of action on this issue clearly demonstrates that they do not value me as a customer or care about getting my money back to me. Ive never been treated this way by a financial institution and Im extremely disappointed and frustrated with my experience with SoFi. I feel SoFi has been negligent in their duty to me as a financial institution that is supposed to protect my assets and to monitor my assets, so that they can quickly act if fraudulent activity has occurred. 



As can be seen above, on XX/XX/XXXX I called Sofi to continue my quest to get this fraudulent activity on my account resolved and the funds refunded back to me. I spoke with Sofi for 100 minutes on this call. I spoke with the manager at this time. The manager was going back-and-forth between talking to me and the security department within Sofi and the manager informed me that I needed to reach out to me above, indicated financial institutions myself, to speak with them, and obtain a hold harmless letter from these financial institutions. Ive never heard of anything like this before. Ive never had to do anything like this before. Ive had fraudulent activity happen at other financial institutions ( XXXX and XXXX ) and I never had to do any of this with those financial institutions. I am not an expert in this area. I do not know how to even start the process of going about contacting these other financial institutions to get a hold harmless letter. I do not know why Im being treated like this. I am extremely frustrated and disappointed. Even though I do know anything about the hold harmless letter process, I still reached out to XXXX XXXX  to ask them if they could send a hold harmless letter to Sofi and the XXXX fraud expert told me they could not do that for me and that SoFi would have to reach out to XXXX themselves. Again, the XXXX fraud expert said she has never heard of a financial institution asking a customer to reach out to another financial institution to have that financial institution, send a hold harmless letter back to the institution that customer has an account with. 



In the phone call section above where I break down the date, length of the phone call and what was discussed in the phone calls that I made to Sofi, you can see that in addition to the initial fraud that happened in my original Sofi accounts, at the end of XXXX, that I had another new fraudulent transaction happen on XX/XX/XXXX in my new account number Sofi accounts. This transaction occurred on XX/XX/XXXX and it was a withdrawal of {$4600.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. Im the one that found this fraud. Im the one that called Sofi about it. Im the one that asked my SoFi accounts to be blocked and I acted extremely quickly when this happened. I acted ( called SoFi to block my new accounts ) the same day that I noticed it. I act so quickly that I was able to prevent another fraudulent withdrawal to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX from occurring. I noticed that the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX account for this new fraudulent withdrawal had the same last four digits as the XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX that was involved in my original late XX/XX/XXXX fraud. Thus somehow whoever had done the new fraud was using the same XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Account as an old fraud. How SoFi let this happen is beyond me. This seems to me to be blatant negligence on Sofis part as well as a possible violation of banking regulations/ standards. 



I also wanted to mention that during this whole process my original SoFi accounts were restricted. Then Sofi created new accounts with new account numbers. Sofi, never informed me about this. All Sofi did was send me an email on XX/XX/XXXX to tell me that the restrictions had been lifted on my SoFi accounts. I went into my SoFi account and noticed that I had new account numbers for my SoFi accounts. I also saw that the original XXXX XXXX interest that I was receiving on my SoFi savings account was now down to XXXX XXXX interest with my new SoFi saving account. Additionally, I lost my direct deposit for my work paychecks that go into my SoFi savings account. So Ive had to reestablish my direct deposit with this new Sofi savings account. However, because of this new fraud ( XX/XX/XXXX ) that happened just two weeks after my new SoFi accounts were opened, my account has been blocked/ restricted again, so Ive not been able to receive my paychecks from work. I have a large tax bill due and I wanted to use my most recent paycheck money, that was supposed to be direct deposited into my SoFi Savings account, to pay my taxes. But now I cant do that and I am being charged interest by the IRS because I have tax due that I was going to pay with my in limbo paycheck. I have to now come up with a new way to get my in limbo paycheck. 



XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I work extremely hard. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX and its very difficult for me to spend the hours and hours of time that this has taken to try to get this resolved. As you can see from above, I spent hours on the phone with so far trying to get this result. Additionally, I have spent hours on this CFPB complaint to articulate everything that happens as well as to gather all the relevant documentation. I also have spent a ton of time working with my employer to see how I can get my most recent paycheck and to try to fix my direct deposit. I have been neglected and ignored by SoFi. 



Please see the documents that I have attached to this CFPB complaint for details about all of the ( new and old ) fraud that has occurred on my SoFi accounts.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief