Bank of America has photo evidence someone else withdrew money, denies customer's fraud claim

Friday, October 20, 2023

Bank has photos of stranger at ATM, denies customer's fraud claim

After denying his fraud claim, Bank of America sent its 'proof' the customer had made the withdrawal himself. But the photo looked nothing like him.

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- Bank of America customer Kyle Fischer lives in Berkeley. Someone had withdrawn money from his account, so he reported it, figuring things would wrap up quickly.

"So a couple weeks went by, and I got a letter, a form letter from them saying, 'We're denying your fraud claim because you made this withdrawal,'" Fischer said. "If you want to see the proof that we have that you made the transaction, we will send it to you."

Proof it was him? This he had to see.

"So a couple weeks go by, and they send me the picture of the person who's supposed to be me, and of course I was not surprised by what I received. It was a picture of a man who, as far as I'm concerned, looks very little like me," said Fischer.

But the bank wasn't buying it and Fischer wasn't getting anywhere.

"I shared the story with a couple of friends. They said, 'You need to talk to 7 On Your Side.' And I said, 'That is an excellent idea,' and I reached out to you," Fischer said.

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7 On Your Side asked Fischer for copies of the photos then showed them around. A group of three friends looked at the photos and told me: "Not even close," "Different guys," "Not even close."

That was our take, too, but one guy told me, "I think it is the same guy."

We contacted Bank of America -- so did an LA Times contact Fischer had -- and the money was returned. The bank gave us this statement: "We take identity theft very seriously. Resolving identity theft issues is a complicated process, and we're always working to improve our client's experience."

Which brings us back to Fischer. He said, "I'm very appreciative of what you're able to do, because you actually got access to a person. I could not do that, no matter what I tried."

Fischer says he had not noticed his account had been ripped off twice. He believes the bank compared two photos of the same guy raiding his account at an ATM and thought it was him since he hadn't reported both withdrawals.

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A victim who was scammed by a thief using the glue and "tap" feature secretly took his own surveillance video to get back the $1,640 stolen from him.

Take a look at more stories and videos by Michael Finney and 7 On Your Side.

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