Consumer complaint received 2026-07-13 00:00:00
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: FL

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX, XXXX, USAA member XXXX received calls he believed were from USAA because the caller ID said such. XXXX XXXX is a long-haul truck driver who was behind the wheel. He glanced at the screen and accepted the call hands-free. He was told to expect two more calls over the next two days, calls he accepted and that also reflected that the caller was USAA. 

After the Monday, XX/XX/XXXX call, XXXX XXXX realized that he had heard a familiar card number, his XXXX XXXX Bank card number. Tuesday morning, he reached out to USAA to confirm whether it was, in fact, XXXX with the fraud department that had contacted him. Upon discovering the USAA Fraud department had not called him, he immediately disputed multiple deposits and transfers, as per USAA telephonic advice. 

On Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX received An Important Notification About Your Account Activity from USAA, notifying him they had had three funds transfer returns. He then logged into and noticed his XXXXXXXX XXXX account was similarly overdrawn. That financial institution allows customers to go up to XXXX percent of their monthly direct deposit in arrears, unless there is an outstanding loan. XXXX XXXX was not allowed to go in the hole because he has outstanding loans, so it appears XXXX XXXX Bank was similarly shell-gamed with illusions of deposits and/or transfers. 

Upon our investigation, we feel USAA, a company exceptionally skilled in the ways of scammers, should have noticed the unusual deposit and transfer activity, especially since the company assures each member that he or she is automatically enrolled in XXXX fraud protection. 

Despite this account never receiving a deposit for more than {$1900.00} ( XX/XX/XXXX ) from any source and never having had a balance above {$2900.00} ( XX/XX/XXXX ), USAAs fraud department and internal controls did not flag as unusual eight same day deposits coming through XXXX XXXX involving thousands of dollars. Similarly, USAA failed to flag three consecutive payments going out for extremely large and very similar amounts. Again, such transactions should be considered extremely unusual for an account associated with XXXX XXXX. 

XXXX XXXX did not possess the money he was being asked to move around by the skilled scammer. XXXX XXXX has never had {$14000.00} in any account outside of a military TSP account, and this balance is below {$50000.00}. He had no idea he wasnt moving USAAs authorized fraud department money. His actual balances were nowhere near these sums and he isnt allowed to routinely overdraw or maintain a negative balance with USAA. He was unaware XXXX XXXX Bank was part of the scam, but XXXX XXXX did not have the funds in that account either. He was absolutely unaware of what seems to be a method to artificially inflate one banks balance to facilitate a fraudulent transfer by gaming the system, a system not designed by XXXX XXXX, but by the banking establishments who move the money. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX received notice of TEMPORARY CREDIT ISSUED for eight incoming deposits that totaled {$12000.00}. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX received three Acknowledgement of Your Claim notices from USAA regarding activity on the account ending in XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX received three ACH DISPUTE : PROVISIONAL CREDIT POSTED notices from USAA, returning {$14000.00} to his account until completion of the USAA investigation. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX received a DISPUTE RESOLUTION from USAA, indicating the completion of investigation of Dispute ID XXXX. XXXX XXXX Department said the provisional credits of {$5000.00}, {$4900.00} and {$4900.00} would be reversed on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX. 

In our investigation, we found no specific USAA warning about what is essentially a shell-game scam requiring the mark ( XXXX XXXX ) to move large amounts of money through XXXX XXXX, an app we discovered is known to financial institutions to facilitates scams. USAA failed to flag highly suspicious incoming and outgoing activity, and, in fact, it was the member, not USAA, who identified suspected fraud. The member reported his suspicions to USAA in a timely manner. 

How was the USAA member supposed to defend against this? Besides accepting what he thought was a call from USAA, how is he at fault for USAA ( and XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX ) not detecting fraud despite outrageously unusual account activity?!? 
We remind you of the characteristics of the members you serve. XXXX XXXX is literally a meat and potatoes XXXX XXXXXXXX who turned wrenches and recovered vehicles boots on the ground during both XXXX wars. After XXXX  years of active-duty service, he served as a XXXX in XXXX. His family feels he didnt come back from his second XXXX quite as logical as he was before he left. He disagrees, of course. He served and now he drives, listening to audio books and moving goods across the country. Hes not routinely on social media to see scam warnings. We feel he has been sheltered from knowledge of the proliferation and increasingly savvy capabilities of scammers. Our family had confidence in XXXX assertion that the fraud department has his back, XXXX. 

We respectfully request a reevaluation of this punishment of a long-term member for fraud that should have been obvious to scam detection programs used by modern financial institutions. We object to your collection effort on this debt and request a full refund of money lost to our family because of USAAs fraud detection failures. In our opinion, USAA essentially stole, in XXXX transactions, {$14000.00} from MEMBER XXXX on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX. 

Thank you for your attention to and consideration of this matter.

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