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US Bank Manipulation of police investigation and wrongful denial of fraud claim. Nationwide
In December 2009 my company hired a contractor to work on homes we owned in Fort Wayne Indiana. We are in California so in order to purchase materials WDIA would check out at a hardware store in Ft. Wayne and I would give the payment information to the customer service department. The contractor somehow convinced the representative to add my credit card info to his contractor without my permission. The contractor then began using my card to purchase materials for other jobs over a six month period. We were running approximately $1 million a month on the card for material purchases in 22 states so our back office missed the charges.
Two weeks after submitting the fraud claim to US Bank I was called by Shannon (866-540-9904 * 11039) in the fraud department for a debriefing. It was clear from the first call that Shannon’s objective was not assisting my company with the fraud charges, but rather trying to find a way to deny the claim. On 7/28/2009 I spoke with Detective Laura Ashley (714-647-7486) at the Orange County Sheriff's department where I originated the police report. Detective Ashley said the case was transferred to the Fort Wayne Police Department on 07/26/09 and to wait a week before contacting them. I gave this information to Shannon at US Bank. On 08/04/2009 Shannon at US Bank contacted me and said that she spoke with the Detective in Fort Wayne and that the Fort Wayne detective told her that they were not pressing criminal charges. Shannon went on to say because they were not pressing charges US Bank was denying the claim. I was flabbergasted; I had never authorized the transactions, the purchases in no way benefited me, and I had no contract with the merchant or perpetrator to allow the purchases. This was clearly fraud. Shannon said the only way they would reverse their decision is if the Detective pressed charges. I contacted Fort Wayne Detective Wayne Likowski (260-427-1201) and he said the he just spoke with Shannon at US Bank and Shannon told the detective there was a contract between the perpetrator and our company (which is false) that authorized the purchases so we would have to go to court and get the monies back. I asked the Detective if he had this contract, or seen any proof we authorized these transactions, which he said he had not. In fact, he had not even called the perpetrator. I asked him if there was no contract and Jeremy Tillotson used my card fraudulently would it be a criminal matter. He said yes it would but he would have to look into it. It is wrong that Shannon at US Bank steered the investigation by telling the detective there was a contract between Jeremy and our company and that Menards (the merchant) had authorization from our company for the purchases when in fact she fabricated this information and had no supporting evidence.
Of the $84,175 in fraudulent charges I had paid off all but approximately $7,800 on the card, prior to realizing the fraud charges. US Bank denied the fraud charges, steered he police investigation which allowed Jeremy Tillotson to get away with fraud and then US Bank charged off the remaining balance of my business line and came after me personally. I have worked for two years to get the charge off removed from my credit to no avail. This has negatively affected my credit creating increased borrowing costs and difficulty obtaining credit.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Forrest through the trees
#3Author of original report
Fri, May 15, 2015
Robert I am not interested in your dissection of my complaint. The purpose is to have US Bank contact me and resolve the point. However, since you spent the time to review the complaint I will respond. Nowhere in my article did I say that US Bank "ripped me off". Yes, you are correct the contractor "ripped me off". My contract with US Bank stated that they would reimburse my company for fraudulent charges on the card, which these charges certainly were.
We were growing very fast and had project managers and AP personnel handling statements, but unfortunately because we used the same hardware store on other projects the charges were not discovered. Once the fraud was found we created a system to resolve future issues. But I don't see how this absolves US Bank of honoring their fraud policies, because in fact these were fraudulent charges.
You are correct, it is very difficult to be reimbursed by a bank when you have already paid off a majority of the fraudulent charges in question. At this point I would be happy for US Bank to remove the charge off for my credit.
You are correct the date of the hire was December 2008, not December 2009. That was a typo.
As for the detective, I phoned him back several times and it seemed that because I was an out of towner he was uninterested in resolving the fraud. In fact even after multiple requests that the officer contact the contractor who had made the fraudulent charges, the officer never made contact. I eventually gave up.
Robert
Irvine,California,
USA
The bank did not rip you off
#3Consumer Comment
Fri, May 15, 2015
You were not ripped off by US Bank, based on what you wrote here you were ripped off by your contractor.
The one glaring issue for you is the timeline...which is NOT in your favor.
The excuse of "Well we didn't notice it because we run about 1 Million dollars in sales through a month" doesn't really hold water. Because that is what your accounting department(person) gets paid for. They get paid to make sure that the charges match and they have a receipt for every purchase. If you are truly running this much through you should probably honestly have a few people doing AP. After all who knows what else is being missed...right?
There were a total of $84,175 in Fradulent charges...you paid off all but $7,800. Once you pay on a fradulent charge it becomes a lot harder to go to the bank and claim fraud. If it was one or two charges, perhaps an excuse could be made that it slipped...but not well over 75K in charges.
Your dates are a bit confusing as well. You stated that you hired your contractor in December of 2009. But you discovered the fraud in July of 2009...5 months BEFORE the contractor was hired.
By the way, if you "corrected" the detective as to the crime did they ever prosecute him? How come you didn't go after him for the damages?