Identity Theft and Bank of America's Lies

On the 16^th of January, I went to an ATM in Roxboro, NC to make a withdrawal. When I checked the receipt, I noticed that what was left in my account did not equal what should have been there. I immediately went to my office and logged into my Bank of America account to see what transactions went through. I noticed a pending entry from a company called National Safety Council which I did not authorize. I immediately googled the company and got the contact information so that I can contact them regarding such a matter. The customer service representative, Lisa, told me the details of such a transaction and it was revealed that my debit card information was compromised. I asked her to correct the fraudulent transaction and she indicated that she would void it out. I then contacted Bank of America and told them that my debit card was compromised and that someone was making illegal transactions with my card. The card was then cancelled. The customer representative at Bank of America indicated that if the representative at National Safety Council voided the charge, it would fall off the account by midnight.

I checked my account on the 17^th of January and the account still indicated that the charge was still pending. I contacted National Safety Council and the representative indicated that she voided the transaction and that there was nothing else that she could do regarding the fraudulent charge. I then contacted Bank of America and informed them that the National Safety Council representative voided the charge and that my account still showed the fraudulent charge as pending. I was informed that it could take 48 hours for the transaction to be removed from my account.

I checked my account on the 18^th of January and the charge was still pending. I had National Safety Council fax the information needed to Bank of America as I was informed of a representative on the 17^th that if they received the information indicating it was an erroneous charge, they could remove the pending charge within 30 minutes. Later, the representative of Bank of America indicated that the charge was no longer pending and he did not see any pending charges on my account. I was looking at my account online and the charge was still reflected as pending.  He indicated that it should be resolved if I logged back out then logged back in. I did that five times while on the phone with the Bank of America representative. It never reflected what he indicated that he saw on his end. He then said that the web version takes awhile to update, so while on the phone with him, I called the Bank of America to check my account and it still indicated that the charge was pending. He then said that it should reflect what he saw on his end by midnight.  I was then transferred to fraud and it indicated that though the card was cancelled, many other charges were attempted but were denied.

On the 19^th, I contacted the Bank of America and informed them that the charge was pending and that I had been lied to by the organization for the last three days. The representative, Tandra Jefferson, was rude and indicated that it could take up to five days to fall off my account, that it was a Visa issue and not Bank of America. I informed them that the information she was giving me was far different than the information I received on the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th. She then became rude regarding my questioning the information she was giving me and asked her to read back the notes from the previous conversations that I had in Bank of America employees on previous dates. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she became even ruder to me. I informed her that I had a number of pressing issues due to this fraudulent transaction and that National Safety Council did what was required and that the holdup was now with Bank of America. I then asked to speak to her supervisor and she indicated that she was a supervisor. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she transferred the call. Her supervisor, Deon McClinton, reiterated what Tandra said and provided additional information regarding Bank of America’s policies regarding fraudulent charges. I told him that the pending charge reset on two occasions, now indicating a hold date of 1/23. He said that would indicate the 5^th business date and that is why it probably reset to that date.  I then informed him of what previous Bank of America representatives said regarding crediting the account a certain amount of money and I then asked him to that for my account. He indicated that the fraud department could not do that and that must be something that the customer service department could implement. I then asked to be transferred to that department and he did so, but it was indicated that they were closed hours earlier. I then called back verbalizing my frustration regarding the run-around I was receiving from Bank of America and they issued an apology but no viable solutions.