Compiled from Public Data by FairShake
The US government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) collects complaints against financial companies.
In 2016, the CFPB received 979 complaints against USAA. USAA ranked Number 28 among all financial companies for the most complaints.
Date of Complaint: November 1, 2016
Company Official Name: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: NC
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-Product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management
Full Complaint:
On XXXX XXXX, 2016, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX wrote my wife and I to say they had added our daughter to our accounts, as requested. We had no accounts with them. I called them ; a fraudulent checking and savings accounts in my name had been opened XXXX XXXX. We were never notified. My wife and I verified to them this was fraudulent activity, and our daughter did the same. We told USAA we had no accounts with them, that these were opened using stolen identities, and that the accounts had to be closed and deleted. We were told that the accounts were flagged, marked fraudulent and cancelled. I called back on XXXX XXXX to verify this. On XXXX XXXX I filed an identity theft report with the XXXX Police Department : report number XXXX.
Between XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX my wife, daughter and I received mail from USAA. ( The fraudulent account in our daughter ‘s name was opened showing our address as hers, so all her mail from USAA arrived at our house. ) Each time this happened I called the USAA identity theft division. Each time I was told the accounts were flagged and that no activity could take place on them and the accounts would eventually be deleted.
On XXXX XXXX a letter arrived for our daughter from USAA Federal Savings Bank, XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, Texas XXXX. This letter stated that a consumer loan taken out in her name had an overdue loan payment of {0.00}. This loan, it turned out, was made on XXXX XXXX, 2016. My daughter and I called the identity theft folks, and they put us through to the loan department. That person put the information we provided her into another report and said someone would call me back in about three days to confirm that the matter was cleared up and the accounts finally closed. Not trusting this to be the case, since a fraudulent loan had been taken out in our daughter ‘s name more than three weeks after we were told by USAA that the accounts were secured, I called back on XXXX XXXX and spoke with another person in their consumer fraud department. She said that nobody at USAA had ever filed a report with their financial crimes unit, as they should have done XXXX XXXX. She then proceeded to take down all the information again and a report to that unit. She said I would receive a callback from them after 48 hours, and that they should be able to confirm to us in writing that these accounts were fraudulent, that they had been permanently closed, and that the notations sent to credit agencies about the ” loan ” to our daughter would be retracted.
I asked her how it was possible for someone to take out a loan against an account that had previously been reported as being fraudulent and which we had been assured could no longer be used. She said that ” flagging ” an account only meant that it was marked internally as being a security risk, so when someone wanted to use it for something USAA would text them a security code to use to open the account for activity. They texted the code to the phone number given when the fraudulent account was opened. Someone opened a fraudulent account using a contact number that linked to a phone in their possession. They never confirmed the opening of the account with us at our legitimate address, and there was no security at all for the account when the unknown person later took out the loan. Regardless of what we were told over a period of nearly three months, they never secured the fraudulent accounts or protected us from fraudulent activity. They allowed a fraudulent loan to be taken out after multiple warnings, and assurances to us that it could never happen.
Response Type: Closed with explanation
Public Response:
Company believes complaint is the result of an isolated error
FairShake accessed this complaint from the public archives of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). You can file your own complaint with the CFPB here.