A viewer from Stockton recently wrote
in telling us that more than $12,000
had been drained from her bank account.
A Bank of America was
actually her business account,
and she had been trying to get
that money back since November,
but said that she was getting nowhere,
so we decided to look into it.
November 2nd, we did what we normally do.
We checked our bank account,
our online apps and it looked like we
had paid somebody via Zelle through Bank
of America $12,500, which we had not.
Nothing like that had happened.
My husband said I didn't do this.
Did you do this? And I said no.
He immediately called and I said,
well it's processing, so put a stop to it.
He just said, look,
there's been this transaction processing.
And the person on the other line said, well,
that has actually happened instantaneously.
It's a Zelle transaction.
Why is it processing?
If it's happened instantaneously?
Why does it say processing on the
app and say, well, it just does?
They couldn't give us a clear answer.
This is our business account.
This is a drop in the bucket
for Bank of America.
But this is,
this is our everything for our business,
stocking,
hearing, aid, dispensary,
a business Lizzie says has roots
and serving its community.
We mostly work with the elderly and veterans.
We have made house calls to people
who are just house bound and
can't get or can't get a ride.
It's just really a shame that this
has happened because it's cut into
how we serve those we care about.
After hours on hold, day after day, Lizzie
realized they weren't getting anywhere.
Then she was told by a Bank of America
representative that their claim had
been filed as a scam, not fraud. She
said this has been logged in correctly,
this has been logged as a scam.
I said, well, it's not a scam.
And I was very clear.
This has been a fraud.
This has not been a scam.
And we have not been contacted
prior to this by any organization,
group or even a random telephone call,
Lizzie says they were told if
it gets handled as a scam,
then we have to work with cell directly.
And we were told, well, good luck.
If it's through Zell,
you're not going to get your money back.
And I said, well, that's fine,
this is their Bank of America.
This is a fraud.
It was very scary to me once they said that.
And so more than ever,
I felt the need to keep in touch
with Bank of America at that point.
We have fraud protection being a business we,
you know, want to cover ourselves.
And they're saying, well,
if you have any evidence you can present.
And the whole time I'm asking what can
I do to help expedite the process?
What can I do to move this forward?
This is a lot of money.
This is our working capital.
I mean, COVID almost took us out.
Do we have three kids with special needs?
We are just trying to make
ends meet and it's hard,
especially happening around Christmas time.
You know, I didn't get to buy.
Christmas presents.
I didn't get to have a nice
Christmas dinner with our kids.
We were opening cans.
It was really humbling and so.
In a way,
it was good for me if you try and
look at the bright side of things
because it allowed me to be more
grateful for what we do have and
it made me feel like there was
more of a need to be part of the
community and help everybody
because we're all in the same boat.
They
filed a police report and even
showed their phone records as
directed by Bank of America to
help with the investigation,
but weeks kept going by.
It's not a simple situation
and it should have been,
and they wouldn't even extend us a
credit limit or credit line for the
amount of money that had been stolen.
We applied for it and were denied a
credit line for the amount of money
that had been stolen from our account
after weeks of calling and going
in person multiple times to Bank
of America branches, Lizzie says.
I think one of the hardest things
was feeling completely powerless.
It's ridiculous when you think
that this kind of money is being
played with outside of your control.
I think there needs to be transparency and.
Honesty. If it's instantaneous it
needs to say instantaneous transaction,
not processing, and then with it does say
processing and it truly is processing.
You need to be able to have some
sort of expedited process where you
can get in and create some sort of a
stopgap measure to help the situation.
Now, when I heard Lizzie's story,
I reached out to Bank of
America about her case.
I'm happy to report that the issue
was was resolved the next day after
forwarding the case to the bank.
And here's also what we learned
about working through Lizzie's case.
Because in the documents
that she shared with us,
her phone company did confirm that
her phone had been hacked and that
the person who took over their
phone was able to access their bank
account info for Bank of America.
So that could have that person could
have used any other method to send money.
But they did decide to use Zell.
But again, thankfully,
she did get all that money back.