Margaret Harrison, a young wife and mother living in San Diego, first noticed the problem four years ago when she applied for unemployment.
“They asked if I worked on a horse ranch in eastern Washington, and I said no,” laughs Harrison. “[I’m] not quite the rancher type.”
She investigated and found out a laborer named Pablo has been using her Social Security number. And while Margaret pays for credit monitoring, she says the Equifax credit reporting bureau never noticed the problem until she told the agency. Now Equifax has put a fraud alert on her account. And then there’s this: Last month, the Bank of America sent her a new debit card bearing her name and Pablo’s picture!
Margaret says the Bank of America claims it can’t take any action against Pablo because he pays his bills on time — that her case is in what they call “a reactive state.”
“Because currently it’s not negatively impacting my credit, so I have no legal recourse for any action,” says Harrison.
Uh, is this what a bank calls Customer Service?
What does BOA care? All the fees they got from the credit cards or accounts; so if Pablo is paying and the true owner is not, go Pablo…
They should be sued…
Bank of America does care… They consider themselves a conglomerate that doesn’t need to care about the single customer. What does 1 person’s account mean to them.
Folks, there are many other banks out here in the world, might be a good time to consider changing banks.
Just wait until Pablo starts buying internet kiddie porn or crystal meth ingredients or airplane tickets for Al Qaeda members on the credit card. Timely payments or not, the young housewife will get quite a “reaction” then.
“Margaret says the Bank of America claims it can’t take any action against Pablo because he pays his bills on time — that her case is in what they call “a reactive state.” ”
So Bank of America claims they can’t take action even though Pablo is using someone else’s SSN? That’s BS. If I were Margaret I would make sure I had a paper trail (certified letters) notifying BA of the problem and then would sue the heck out of them.
Does anybody at BOA realize that Pablo is a criminal who fraudulently falsified his credit application? He is guilty of identity theft, fraud, and immigration laws at the very least. He is a criminal. (Of course Pablo is an illegal, otherwise he wouldn’t be using someone elses SSN).
BOA is like every other crooked banker/lender/employer. As long as breaking the law helps the bottom line, its fine with them.
Hold up…the guy who stole her credit card is actually PAYING his bills?!?! Why the hell don’t this guy just get his own card? I think “Mister Mustard” is right, Pablo is probably planning something shady. Weird man, weird!
Wait a minute here – the base crime is Pablo using Margaret’s SSN, by not taking action BOA is facilitating a crime. I believe Margaret has a good civil case and, should she decide to pursue, a case with the Feds.
You guys are fairly quick to bash. This is a typical one-sided nightly news story and Eidard cut out one semi-important part: [ Bank of America declined our request for an interview about this story. A spokesperson said Margaret Harrison’s case is “under investigation.” ]
What is important is that everything you see in the article is Margaret Harrison’s interpretation of the situation. There is no evidence to indicate this “young wife and mother” has a complete grasp on the situation and any legalize she may have received from BoA. If BoA says “We can’t take any action on this; you should contact federal authorities” she could interpret that as “BoA refuses to fix my problems.”
Richard B
I don’t think you have it. BOA knows someone has opened an account using false identification. They even sent the woman in the story a new card with the thief’s picture on it. They have yet to refute her claim that BOA will not do anything. This sounds like BOA is aiding a fraud. If the CEO of Bank of America was to be charged with conspiracy to defraud then we might start to see some effort on the part of Banks to halt Identity Theft. As long as Banks are making a profit they have no incentive to stop it.
Though a good bet would be that if the CEO of a Bank were ever charged with Conspiracy to Defraud, the next day Congress would have a new law on the books protecting CEOs from criminal prosecution. Branch managers might be a different story. This is the same as businesses that knowingly hire illegals. The Government doesn’t care to do anything about it. They are there solely to protect big business.
I’m married to a banking IT person. I know damned well the bank she works for jumps on something like this in a shot! In fact, living in a state with a significant percentage of illegal migrant labor, the bank she works for watches out for incidents like this.
Pat: I get all that. What I’m saying is that you’re only seeing one part of this story told from one side. From the bank’s standpoint, this Pablo was doing a legal thing opening the credit card account. As the article says, this happens all the time. The account is now under investigation. This article isn’t 5 years old; it’s from last night. I would never expect a huge corporation like BoA to move with efficiency and speed, particularly when legal matters are concerned. Being slow does not equate to committing an illegal act, as you have suggested.
Plus, let’s get serious about this Harrison lady for a moment. From what I can tell, she has ample information for the police to find and arrest this Pablo person. Before pointing fingers at BoA, why not wonder why no actual legal recourse is taken against the person committing the crime? MSNBC saw fit to censor his image, so which corporation is protecting the criminal in this case?
Uh, Richard, the interview with Harrison was yesterday. According to the article, she received the new debit card, last month. I doubt if she waited until she spoke to MSNBC [who picked it up from a local source] to complain to BofA. Most reasonable folks will presume the bank has known about this for several days and is still “reflecting” upon the circumstances.
Fudging the image? That’s called protecting your butt. It’s why cops have to say, “alleged perpetrator” — to reporters, not each other.
“…she received the new debit card last month…”
And according to the article she first noticed the problem 4 years ago. If she notified BA then as part of her investigation I would say BA has no excuse to not have resolved this issue long be now.
Eideard: A day or several days, you’re still talking about a legal matter in a large corporation. I’ve seen legal disputes with financial institutions take months. Beauracracy, red tape, and other BS does not equate to a criminal act as Pat stated. I bet this type of matter goes through several departments as part of its “investigation” and probably has to sit in a queue before they even start. Harrison is not the only person with her identity stolen I’m betting.
And what you posted still ignores the other points I brought up. Why no police? That would be my first call. And can Harrison’s interpretation really be trusted as cold hard fact? I’m sorry but “Bank of America claims it can’t take any action against Pablo because he pays his bills on time” reeks of BS. There’s only a single article on this and you can only call it as you see it. The way I see it, this two minute nightly news scare segment does not have all the info.
BoA is good at screwing people over, nothing to see here folks, move along, move along…
Can’t she close the account and dispute the charges? Isn’t the account in her name?
Does this mean Pablo is helping her credit record? Wouldn’t that be a first?
These banks are worried about their bottom dollar. They don’t give a crap about your bottom dollar. They should have added some strict regulations to these banks, credit agencies, credit card companies, etc. with the new bankruptcy laws. Unfortunately, our politicians don’t give a crap about us either, until election day.
There is always called fraud. Since BoA has been informed that the identify is in fact has been stolen and refuse to do anything about it, wouldn’t that make them a party to fraud?
She should call her local AG, the state bank regulators, and get a private lawyer about this. Then see what BoA’s tune is. Watch it change very quickly.
Bank of America behaviors like a robber.
I openned an online account at BOA 4 months ago and online transfer 120 dollars into BOA account. After a while, a week or two, BOA sent me a lot of material to congratulate my new account with them. However, a few days later, I recieved a letter from BOA. I was told that my accout was closed because my social security number is not correct and they charged me 60 dollars for account closing. I feel extremely angry about this, so I called them and told them my ssn is correct. They told me to get a proof from my local ssn department and faxed the proof to them. I faxed them my ssn proof twice and called them millions of times. guess what, those ladies and men who recieved my call all treat me like an enemy…I want to say, they have the worst attitude in the world.What I want is my 60 dollars back. What should I do
DO NOT OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH BANK OF AMERICA!
THEY INCREASED MY APR FROM 14.98% TO 24.98%. EACH PERSON I SPOKE WITH GAVE ME A DIFFERENT ANSWER. I PAID ON TIME AND MORE THAN THE MINIMUM!
THEY ARE EXTREMELY HARD TO DEAL WITH!
I NEED HELP with my Bank of America Mastercard. Yes I called the number and spoke to several people over the last few monthes about all of my statements (electronic and paper) being in Spanish !! This is still not corrected so I closed the account. Now the last person I talked to was very, as a matter of fact, with me and She left me with a sore taste in my mouth. I asked that the $19.95 credit be mailed to me as well as the money in the savings account associated with this card and also after looking into a spanish dictionary I noticed I had a 29.00 annual fee. I just want the card closed and the $29.00, $19.95, and the money held in the savings account returned to me. I am sorry to have this matter drag out so long and to involve so many people with this. I recently spoke to Mrs. Savage at 7:30 AM 1/31/07 please help, Chad
I believe every word of this because I have been dealing with BoA.I have a credit card from them that i have never used . Now they are calling saying that i owe them 15000.00 plus .I have tried talking to there fraud dept. but that was like pissing in the wind.They tell me that this was done on balance transfer and check. They will not send me any copy of the check just statement .The card that the balance transfer was supposed to be on, don’t show up on any statement. I believe this fraud goes all the way to the top of this co. All of the people from BoA that i have talked to are rude,and do not give a crap about what is really going on I just hope some lawyer will read this and help get a class act law suit against .to bring them down . I did file a claim against them to the consumer report along with a lot of other people.
I just came upon this site trying to google another site. I had to stop and read because it involved (B of A). Bank of America has some of the worst customer service in the world. They change monthly APR each month. They put this in fine print in the beginning of your application and then, bam, sock it to you. Its crazy that they get away with this. This is a bank for corporations and not individuals. Stay away.
After being a so called “Valued Customer as I have been told with a good credit rating and never not paying any bills, Bank of America increased my credit card intrest rate from 7.99 % to 21.99 percent which is approximately half my monthly payment. After extending me this credit which I have not exceeded or met I was told by a Top Representative of there Head Quarters as a “Valued Customer” that they would like to keep because I pay my bills on time they increased my intrest rate to make sure I make my payments. After I voiced my my feelings to this Repesentative which he became insulted by as a Valued Customer I am telling anyone dealing with this Bank don’t let them suck you in and build up any credit amount with them because they will do what they had done to me.
Trow away any credid cards you have with Bank Of Amarica, my 12 year old grandson bought 2,200 in games to play over the internet without my permission, I’m 58 years old and none of this purchases are my buying patterns, they never questioned any of the purchases or warned me, I have to pay the 2,200 because he is my grandson. SHAME on Bank of America for not looking out for a customer with 21,000 credit limit,
Discover will protect you and if they see too much activity they will call you and block the card until you call them from your house.
Chad if u r still having problems w/boa pst info again I can help
dont feel bad they keep taking my moms money and at one point they accused my dead father of taking the money out and secretly using it this situation has been going on over a month and weve tried everything to resolve this it is just sheer stupidity
The whole social security system is currently an upside down farce. Consider these facts: There are now 9,000,000 income tax filings–under the wrong social security number. One investigation uncovered 35 employees using the same social security number. Up to 80% of these illegal social security card uses are alleged to be by illegal immigrants. There are some 360,000 cases backed up in the immigration courts, many of which have to do with social security fraud. The situation is so bad it’s an unbelievable, runaway disaster.
And, to top it all off, incredibly, there is no requirement for an employer, lender, or credit card vendor to verify the legality of use. No law demanding reporting compliance either.
I write extensively on the subject of con artists of every type and their con games. And, this area of fraud makes me, out-and-out, sick.
I’ve had it with BofA. Made 4 payments transfers using BofA’s online banking system to my BofA credit card. Find out later that somehow BofA used that money to pay a non-existent line of credit. Took me 7.75 hours to get the money back in my account, but BofA refuses to reinstate my points (i.e. stole my money). They say: it’s your fault for using online banking. And “the Pay this Card” feature is not available to you as you have multiple accounts. Say what? Why then does it ask me which account to use to pay? and why does it say “pay now” if I can’t use it? Bottom line is that they have stolen my money and I’m closing all accounts. I urge you all to do the same.
BOA sucks, closed my account, that I have had for 5 years, paying above min.balance eac month. All because they looked at my credit report and said I had to much credit out,,,,,,,,,get this they get their money on time every month,,,hello