Identity theft? Yeah, right.

[bankworking]

So, guy comes in because his account is overdrawn due to, according to him, identity theft. This triggers huge sympathy feelings in myself, until I look over the account and see what is going on.

Through multiple online check cashing places, this gentleman (and he was very polite,I'll say that for him) has had DEPOSITED to his account around $5600 between the months of last August and early February. When the deposits started last August, he USED the money. A month later, withdraws began, some of them for the full amount plus fees, some for the partial amount (there are some online places that allow you to pay back the funds over the course of several months. I believe one of them we calculated at well over two thousand percent APR, so I generally believe they are worse than the ones that just take the money back all at once. Most of the one-time payback places work out to closer to 300-400% APR).

Having an account in good standing (at that time) and having overdraft turned on, his account went negative due to these withdraws in November.

He paid the negative, got more cash advances deposited, and continued the cycle.

In early February, his account went negative again. Also paid, this time BY cash advances. But apparently, he was done after that. He used the rest of his money in the account and deposited no more. Due to the recent negatives, his overdraft protection was turned off, so when the cash advances started trying to take more money out of his account this time, they bounced. Which both caused a bounce fee and triggered them to keep trying, both for their payments and for their bounce fees. Considering that he was set up with multiple different places by this time, fees took his account over $800 negative. Just FEES. Our fees are $25 per item with no daily negative, so that's a LOT of bounced items. Especially since the account eventually closed as a result, so any attempts to hit the account after the charge-off wouldn't show.

Amazingly his direct deposit into the account stopped at precisely this same time.

And now, in late April, he comes in to claim that none of these charges were authorized. That he didn't know they had put money into his account. He just thought his work was giving him bonuses. That he hadn't noticed them taking money out of his account since September. That when he paid the account back positive with cash in November, he just thought he'd messed up,and the cash advances that brought his account up positive in February (that he withdrew the rest of the money from) he thought were, again, work bonuses.

And he never stopped his payroll direct deposit from coming into the account, IS still working for that company, and just hasn't needed to use his account for the last two months while the bounced withdraws were pulling the account negative, so didn't know what was happening until now. (for someone who's payroll deposits haven't hit for over two months, he was remarkably calm about not knowing where his paychecks were).

A scam? Yeah, not buying that one. Fortunately, it's been long enough that I did not have to fill out a dispute, only get him in contact with collections. Considering that the negative is just from our own fees at this point, they'll be generous working something out with him, but they will NOT waive all of the fees in this circumstance.

[Argabarga]

It also could be he's just so woefully inept at managing his banking that he really doesn't understand why there's no money left.... and like a person who's embarrassing FB pictures were seen by people they didn't want to see em' claims they were "hacked", this guy just knee-jerks and claims "Stolen identity!"

[tilly101]

A long, long time ago, prior to my health insurance days, I worked for a bank.
When I first started, I bought each and every one of these kinds of scams.
By the time I left, I was as jaded as jaded could be lol

[bankworking]

You know, I would maybe believe that he just was that clueless about the funds in his account (wouldn't be the first time) except it was awfully convenient how he stopped his direct deposit from coming in (oh sorry, it stopped itself: a fact of which he showed absolutely no concern) right at the same time as he withdrew all the money from the latest cash advance deposits and then stopped using the account altogether for the two months that the advance places kept trying to take money back.

Anyway, the only benefit anyone other than he got from everything was to the cash advance places. I suppose they could have gotten into stealing someone's account information so they could give them money, see if the recipient failed to notice, then later take the money back away along with the outrageous fee. From what I've seen, however, they have plenty of people going to them willingly for their loan sharking to have any need to try to force their loans onto someone.

[sirwired]

And he's foolish to think that just because he's closed his checking account all those places that lent him money will just say "Oh, well, I hope he enjoyed our cash Carry on then!"

I do believe his life is going to become a living hell of court judgements, nastygrams, and rude telephone calls at all hours of the day.

[barainga]

I think he is full of it, I noticed within 2 weeks when I had some issues. Bank took care of it since I caught it so fast. Returned all my money and the fees within a week after I called them. Only reason it took me that long is because I was on a field deployment at the time.

[siskaren]

And he's foolish to think that just because he's closed his checking account all those places that lent him money will just say "Oh, well, I hope he enjoyed our cash Carry on then!"

The way I'm reading it is that the bank closed the account due to it being negative for an extended period. I used to work in loss prevention at a bank, and our system would automatically close down an account that had been negative for 45 straight days. And in that situation, the direct deposit would reject, in which case the ACH department would let us know about it. We could then have the money posted to an accounts receivable account (I think that's what it was called; it's been 5 years since I worked there), and if there was any left over, it would then be sent to the customer by cashier's check.

[bankworking]

The way I'm reading it is that the bank closed the account due to it being negative for an extended period. I used to work in loss prevention at a bank, and our system would automatically close down an account that had been negative for 45 straight days. And in that situation, the direct deposit would reject, in which case the ACH department would let us know about it. We could then have the money posted to an accounts receivable account (I think that's what it was called; it's been 5 years since I worked there), and if there was any left over, it would then be sent to the customer by cashier's check.

We wait 60 days, but yeah, we closed the account for it being negative. I think we wait 60 days because if a charge IS bogus, generally a customer has 60 days to dispute it. Which I've had to explain to a few people who accidentally got themselves signed up for a monthly fee ("free" credit reports are a big one for signing people up for a monthly charge in exchange for the "free" report) and didn't notice the 14.95 a month charge for the next year. Not that we win on the dispute anyway, but at least we can try if it's in 60 days.

[lachesis]

Wait a sec, are we talking about pay day loans here? Those are seriously bad juju... I don't envy your situation. The customer probably still doesn't get that he owes the money back and probably never will.