Consumer complaint received 2025-12-16 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: VA

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX I received a call from XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX ( XXXX , NY ) claiming to be from the Bank of America fraud department . They told me there had been 2 purchases flagged on my account. One had originated at a XXXX in Alabama for over {$300.00} and one on the XXXX store for over {$900.00}. I immediately opened my BOA app on my phone and didn't see anything but the man on the phone assured me that I didn't see the charges because they had been flagged and hadn't been approved. I thought this was strange but I had just gotten out the shower, my in-laws had just arrived, and I was rushing trying to get out the door so I didn't think much of it.

He had me confirm the last 4 of my card number and then began to read off the transactions. The first two were the supposedly fraudulent charges that I couldn't see, but then he continued on reading other charges which I confirmed were my actual purchases, making me think this was a legitimate call because he clearly had access to my account. He said since we hadn't made those purchases we could either close and issue new cards, or he could put the account on a status where we could use the card in person but any online purchases would issue us alerts and require our approval. We opted for that one because we've had to get new cards issued before and its a headache. 

We spent the next hour or so on the phone. He sent me push notifications from the BOA app which I thought were for the alerts because that's what he said. Then he sent me one from XXXXXXXX XXXX my phone carrier, and another from my XXXX account and my XXXX email account. All these were under the guise of making sure I'd be able to receive alerts. Once all that was done I left the house to head to my friend 's house. 

I immediately noticed that when I left as soon as I was out of range of my house my phone lost internet connection. I tried to call my wife and that didn't work either. This was my first sign that something was wrong. About 15 minutes later I got to my friends house. I connected to his wifi but still couldn't get my phone to make calls. I used his phone to call my wife and had her contact the bank while I was on his phone contacting my phone carrier.

They told me that they didn't see anything wrong on their end and my phone should be working fine. But then she said that my phone showed up in their system as a XXXX XXXX XXXX which I don't own. I have a XXXX XXXX XXXX. I let her know and she placed a sim lock on my phone but still could not activate it. They issued me a new e-sim which got my phone working the next day. 

While still on the phone with them my wife notified me that there had been roughly $ XXXX in charges to our account since we had got off the phone with the scammer. He had cloned my sim, and had all the alerts pushed to his phone which he approved. He also moved money from our savings account to checking and withdrew {$2000.00} from the checking account. 

Once I got off the phone with XXXX XXXX I used my friends WIFI to log into my banking, XXXX account, and emails to change all my passwords. I then spent the rest of the night and pretty much the entire weekend updating all my passwords for everything. Once inside my XXXX account I noticed he had added not only that XXXX XXXX XXXX, but a laptop and an XXXX  passkey as approved devices so he could get back into my XXXX account once I changed my password. I deleted everything except the XXXX XXXX  which I performed a remote wipe on first before removing it from my account. Just to note, the location for that device showed as XXXX but I'm sure he could have been using a VPN or something. I then went and found he had left back doors in all my accounts he had accessed so I removed those and created new backup emails for everything and changed the passwords one more time.

I went back home and we spent a while on the phone with Bank of America that night where they were able to lock our accounts, issue us new cards and account numbers, and marked the purchases as fraud. 

I also want to note that the scammer called back again on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX from a different number attempting the same ploy not realizing he had already scammed me. The caller had a thick XXXX accent and I recognized his voice immediately and cursed him out and he hung up on me. The number he called from this time was XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX ( XXXX XXXX, WI ). 

Bank of America, in person at the local branch, helped us recover the {$2000.00} from checking ( just in time to pay our mortgage that month ), but Bank of America corporate who handles credit card fraud claims has now denied this fraud claim twice, stating that " the purchases were approved using your device, '' even though we explained to them on the phone several times everything above. 

The police report we filed with XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) number is # XXXX. I've also filed a report with the FTC ( # XXXX ) as well as XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX.

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