• by Seana Mulcahy , April 7, 2008

I must admit, this is always a terrible topic. For those of you reading this you probably think you are among the savviest when it comes to protecting your identity online (or off) as well as knowing about online fraud. You may be right. However, it could happen to you.

A while back I wrote about a crazy situation I went through on account of using Bank of America's online banking. Long story short, I spent a significant amount of time on the BofA website setting up my account settings and online bill pay. I added all my payees, account numbers, monthly amounts to pay (for those that had set amounts), directions of when to pay each, etc.

Turns out for almost two years I had funds that were withdrawn monthly from my account -- without my direction or knowledge. Each time I went to call the toll-free number they transferred me to the fraud department. Instead of helping, they said I was the one being fraudulent. I answered all the customer service rep's questions except one. I couldn't provide a billing address back 15 years ago or so. I was able to provide every other one, my legal address, account numbers, security questions, most recent transactions, etc.

I was beyond stressed. Monies kept coming out even when I requested they stop. The online banking interface sucked too. There was no way to delete a payee. You could only pause payment to the payee. I scoured and scoured the site, I could not find any payee and amount that matched what was on my monthly statement.

I decided to go into my local branch. It took forever. While they were nice, after a while they could not help either. I told them it was me, and my account. I told them I would come back with any other information they needed -- other than my license, passport and bank card and statements I had with me. They told me to go back and determine how much money was taken out when, and for how long. Gee, I thought, that's what they should be able to do.

After spending so much time trying to figure that out, I went back down. They told me they'd do hard copy monthly statement requests for that timeframe and waive the processing fee. Wow -- what customer service, huh? After over two weeks of waiting, I was able to drive back to the bank and get the statements. Voila, I was able to map back the details and had an indication of who the creditor was. Long story short, I had a monthly electronic funds transfer (EFT) withdrawn and applied to a mortgage. Since then I sold the house. The mortgage company changed its name and the bank changed over to BofA (from Fleet). Although I deactivated the monthly payment to what the mortgage company was called when I sold the house, it got reactivated with the bank merger.

After months of calling the old mortgage company, real estate lawyers, the bank, etc., I got all the necessary paperwork to prove what came out when. To top it all off, BofA stuck me into what it calls "investigation." You get some sort of bank employee that never gives your their last name or mailing address. I am convinced she was scripted to put me off.

Months later, after dozens and dozens of conversations, the mortgage company (Cendant) proved to be the most helpful. Its investigator gave his first and last name, title, a direct phone, fax and snail mail address. He also put me on three-way calls with the bank "investigator."

So about six months later (that was now a year ago), I was able to get back a chunk of the money. Let's just say in the five digits. I was not able to get any of the fees BofA slapped on me, etc. That equaled several thousand additional dollars.

So what happened? When the banks merged, my deactivated monthly EFTs via online banking got reactivated without my knowledge. I was in temporary housing with a mail-forward, as my house was under construction. In the meantime the mortgage company merged as well. I had no idea that BofA's online banking was a third party: Citibank. I think that still may be the case. So the money got taken out, wired to Cendant to pay the mortgage, the payment was rejected as the account number wasn't valid (of course not, because the mortgage was paid when the house was sold off), the payment got stuck at Citibank and never forwarded back to BofA. BofA then added all sorts of fees, etc.

To this day I am owed a lot of money. It has snowballed terribly. I have searched for lawyers that handle this kind of law (I need one in Massachusetts). I have devoted so much time and energy to it. I'm still looking for a lawyer and can't find one to take on the case. I'm at wit's end.

Never in a million years did I think online fraud would happen to me -- yet alone happen due to the bank's fault. If anything, check out your own accounts and protect the assets you have.

Also realize, when we are targeting the average American in our campaigns, most are not as savvy as us. They still have fears transacting online. We need to make our privacy policies, et al, clear and easy to understand. We also need to make it easy to access someone (at the brands we represent) accessible, informative and friendly. It's simple business practice, not a commodity.

In the meantime I'd encourage you to offer any wisdom, stories, advice or banter here. I'd love to hear what you have to say. I'll leave you with some stats from the the Internet Crime Complaint Center :

Americans reported $240 million in online fraud losses in 2007 to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (an increase of $40 million from 2006).

The IC3 received almost 207,000 complaints last year; 90.000 of those were referred to various law enforcement agencies.

Median dollar loss in 2007 per complaint was $680, according to the FBI.

Men lost on average $1.67 to every dollar women lost in online fraud last year.

Men accounted for 75.2% of reported perpetrators and 57.6% of all complainants.

Online auction fraud was the most-reported online crime last year, accounting for 35.7% of complaints.

Non-delivery of goods or services was No. 2, accounting for 24.9% of complaints.

So-called confidence scams accounted for 6.7% of complaints in 2007.

Credit-card fraud accounted for 6.3%; check fraud accounted for 6%; computer fraud accounted for 5.3%.

So that's an ugly snapshot of what has been reported over the past year. I beg the question, what hasn't been reported?