BY BRIAN HEWS
A Stockton mom of three was out $8,000 after the Bank of America in La Palma cashed a fake check for someone posing as her, and then refused to give her money back.
Vanessa Tafolla told the local TV station in Stockton that someone walked into the bank nearly 400 miles away claiming to be her.
The scammer deposited a fake $9,550.50 check from Canada, signed Vanessa’s name and walked out with $8,000 cashback.
When the fake check was returned unpaid, Vanessa was out the money she’d spent years saving to buy her first house.
Vanessa reported the fraud, but the bank refused to refund the money, saying the signature matched the one on file.
After another team got involved, Bank of America “credited her account for the full amount” saying, “upon further review, we verified that fraud had occurred.”
When asked how it happened, a spokesperson for the bank said, “We can’t always verify the authenticity at time of deposit. If items are returned as unpaid, the customer is responsible for those funds.”
“I would expect them to verify my identity to make sure it was me. To do more than what they did. I think it’s ridiculous…It’s just very scary that people are able to do this so sneakily,” Tafolla told the station.
How did someone walk into a bank and do this? Bank of America can’t tell us what failed but says they have various authentication steps including checking identification and signatures.
When they verify fraud, they work to return the money.
Read Bank of America’s Full Statement below:
“While tellers are trained to look for signs that a check or ID may be fraudulent, we can’t always verify the authenticity at time of deposit. In this case, upon further review we verified that fraud had occurred, we worked with the client to credit her account.
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