I have recently encountered an unfortunate series of events where several thousands of dollars were withdrawn without authorization from my checking and savings account. I became aware of this problem initially when my boyfriend told me he had withdrawn the money to pay off a loan, and he would be paying me back every cent. I had no reason to believe otherwise. The following week, he proceeded to completely wipe out my checking and savings account, charge up one of my credit cards, pawn several of my belongings, and forge checks in my name. The bank has denied my claim to replace the missing funds because after the first incident, I did not close myaccount. To make a long story short, I am not sure what recourse I have to appeal the bank's decision. Clearly, these were unauthorized withdrawals, many of which were made in the middle of the night. My boyfriend did have access to my pin number, as he was present when I used my card at the grocery store, and at the ATM on several occasions and must have memorized the code. I have filed a police report and have spoken at length with an investigator from the area who is currently working on this situation. My question to you would be if I have any leverage to get funds returned from the bank. I reported the incident within sixty days of discovering the fraud, and read that I may be eligible to receive all but $500 from the fraudulent withdrawals. Please advise as I am not familiar with policies regarding this matter.
Make a list of all of the transactions he made that you did not authorize. It may be simpler to make copies of the bank statements and indicate there which transactions you are concerned about. Then write a note to the bank giving your name and account number, and stating that you've attached a list of transactions that you did not authorize. Include any information that you can about who you believe did make those withdrawals, plus the date when you initially brought all this information to the bank's attention, and be sure to say why you believe your PIN may have been compromised, too. Then ask for a refund of the unauthorized amounts.
You are protected by Federal Reserve Board Regulation E, but even if the bank agrees that all of the transactions were not authorized, it may be able to make you liable for some of them because of the delay in notification. You should not be liable for transactions made before you realized your card had been used without your OK, but when you found out, you should have contacted the bank. From that date forward, you can be liable for up to $500 in unauthorized transactions through the sixtieth day after the end of your bank statement period in which the first unauthorized transfer occurred. The bank can make you liable for any unauthorized transactions that occurred after the end of the sixty day period up to the time you finally notified them.
For example, if you learned of the first theft on May 15 and it showed up on your June 5 bank statement, and additional thefts amounted to $3,000 from May 15 until August 3 (sixty days from the June 5 statement date), you'd be liable for no more than $500 if the bank's investigation confirms that the withdrawals were unauthorized. You said that you told the bank about the problem in less than sixty days from when you learned of the misuse of your card, so the "unlimited liability" period should not be involved at all.
There is a strange wrinkle in these events that could affect your liability. You said that you notified the bank of the first theft, and the bank allowed you to keep your card anyhow. The bank might argue that none of that money will be considered "unauthorized withdrawals" because you wanted to keep the card active and believed you'd be reimbursed by your then-boyfriend. The bank should have insisted on canceling the card at that time, and issuing a replacement. This might have prevented the later withdrawals.
You may need to be patient. Investigating all those transactions will take some time. The bank should give you provisional credit for most of your losses within ten days, subject to adjustment when they complete their investigation. You are entitled to have that investigation completed expeditiously, but in no more than forty-five days for ATM withdrawals and ninety days for purchases made with the card.
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Make a list of all of the transactions he made that you did not authorize. It may be simpler to make copies of the bank statements and indicate there which transactions you are concerned about. Then write a note to the bank giving your name and account number, and stating that you've attached a list of transactions that you did not authorize. Include any information that you can about who you believe did make those withdrawals, plus the date when you initially brought all this information to the bank's attention, and be sure to say why you believe your PIN may have been compromised, too. Then ask for a refund of the unauthorized amounts.