Green Dot Corporation Green Dot They refused to refund fraudlent transactions on my wife's credit card Pasadena California

On 4/15/18 two charges were placed upon my wife's card, one from Verizon for $53.13 and one for Megabus for $55.98. We do not have a Verizon account nor are we taking any bus trips. Since these charges were unauthorized she immediately contacted her card issuer, Green Dot, and reported the fraudulent transactions. As expected they closed out her old card and issued her a new one and after charging her $4.95 for a Lost/Stolen Card fee, advised her to submit a form to request a refund of the stolen funds. They advised it would take 10 business days from the time that the form was submitted and provided her a case number (14037556). After 13 business days she had not heard anything so she called Green Dot and an automated voice advised her that her claim was denied. They claim an investigation shows that she must have authorized the transactions because no further transactions were attempted after she shut off the card. The rep she spoke with implied that she must have given her PIN number to someone (even though these were online credit transactions, which would not involve using the PIN number) and opened a subsequent case (14614167). My wife asked how the result would be different, and the clerk told her to provide proof that she didn't authorize the transactions, although they had no suggestions on how we might prove a negative. My wife, who was already victimized once on this matter, now felt she was being treated like a criminal. At that point I offered to call Green Dot on her behalf on 5/2/18.

I spoke with a clerk who identified herself as Chris (who, upon my repeated request finally provided an agent number of 21263). Chris refused to assist me because my wife was not on the line with me and thus she could not provide me any information. I informed Chris that I did not require information, but rather for them to refund the stolen money to my wife in compliance with (as I understand it) the Fair Credit Billing Act. She still declined to discuss the matter with me in any way. I then performed a conference call with my wife and we spoke with Deah (agent number 1-0964). Deah reiterated the questionable logic of why her claim was denied and suggested we provide documentation to prove that my wife did not authorize the charges, although when we asked what would be sufficient proof she tentatively suggested a report with the police. I demanded to speak with Deah's supervisor and was transferred to another Chris. This Chris (agent number 300182) advised that they were not going issue the refund and that they would review it again under the other case if we sent in the form again and added documentation proving my wife didn't authorize the charges. I again demanded to know how they expected us to prove a negative, and Chris asked if we'd spoken with Verizon. In fact my wife had called as Verizon's help desk number appeared on the statement, and they informed her that they had no record of her card being used and could not provide any information on the phone used to activate it, as it was a prepaid phone. Chris suggested procuring a letter from Verizon and Megabus verifying that we did not use their services (though how their Customer Service departments would feel they could verify that I honestly have no idea.)

At this point I was more than frustrated by the fact that the bank was refusing to follow basic banking protocol and, again, my understanding of Federal Law. Further fueling this frustration is that I work in the credit card industry, so I know for a fact that the company is not following standard fraud procedures as I have ever understood them. At the end of my conversation with Chris I informed her that I expected a result ion to this by the end of business that day (5/3/18) and she told me that I would receive a call from her manager with 24 hours. It is now around 30 hours later and I have not heard from them, nor do I expect to. They did refund my wife the $4.95 Stolen Card fee, but there is no indication that they will refund her the $109.11 in fraudulent charges. After filing a complaint with the BBB I was finally given a number that led me to a woman named Nancy who seemed to actually comprehend the issue and return calls when she said she would. However she advised me she did not have the authority to refund the stolen money and that the only resolution she saw was to submit a new case (which was unlikely to have a different result unless we somehow procured letters from Megabus and Verizon proving that we aren’t customers). It seems obvious to me that their tactic is to throw up as many roadblocks and obstacles as possible until we just get frustrated and give up since it is a comparatively small amount of money that was stolen. We are looking for alternate banking options for my wife, but many who use Green Dot are unable to find alternate options (and it is a challenge for her as well). It is beyond infuriating that this institution is taking the step to further victimize victims of theft by refusing to follow federal law and refund stolen fees for no valid reason.