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Ten class action lawsuits claiming Bank of America improperly handled unemployment benefits during the pandemic, resulting in frozen accounts and fraud, will be consolidated into federal court in the Southern District of California.
Bank of America has an exclusive contract with California’s unemployment agency to handle benefits. As claims spiked during the coronavirus pandemic, benefit recipients accused the bank of mishandling their desperately needed funds. Those on unemployment said they saw their accounts drained by fraud and complained that they were unable to access their money due to Bank of America’s mismanagement.
A major contention of many unemployment recipients is Bank of America’s use of debit cards that lacked security features to distribute benefits.
The bank was hit with a series of class action lawsuits from benefit recipients and ordered to provide immediate relief to Class Members earlier this month.
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the class action lawsuits Friday, sending them to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Bank of America had urged the panel to allow the class action lawsuits to proceed separately using “informal coordination” to organize the legal proceedings. The panel roundly rejected the bank’s suggestion as “unwieldy,” pointing out that the claims “overlap extensively but with substantive differences.”
Jennifer Yick filed the first class action lawsuit after seeing her unemployment funds drained by fraudsters. Yick claimed that Bank of America didn’t do enough to properly protect fund recipients like her from potential fraud.
Have you been a victim of fraud, or had unemployment benefits stolen from your Bank of America account? Share your experiences in the comment section below.
One of the lead plaintiffs is represented by Andrew F. Kirtley, Anne Marie Murphy, Brian Danitz, Joseph W. Cotchett Jr., Karin Bornstein Swope, and Kevin Jones Boutin of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP, and Altshuler Berzon LLP.
The Bank of America Unemployment Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Bank of America California Unemployment Benefits Litigation, Case No. 3:21- md-02992, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
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21 thoughts onClass Action Lawsuits Accusing Bank of America of Mishandling Unemployment Funds Consolidated
$14,288.60 of unauthorized transactions. It froze my account after i reported the issue. And when I was able to get a hold of them BoA denied my claim automatically
B of A would allow access to my funds for over eight months. Causing great financial hardship.
I had $3,045 initially stolen from me. I secured my account with the BOFA claims dept but had another $624 transferred to the same account (last 4 digits available). The BOFA claims dept found that a VOIP phone number was listed as the call back # for one time passcode this was not my phone #. My actual phone# was listed on the customer contact info. This lead directly to “one-time transfer” page of website, bypassing log in page.
My 2nd claim for $624 was credited back to my account by BOFA. But the 1st claim $3,045 has been denied and closed/re-examined three times. I have filed a police report (Gilroy, CA) at the request of BOFA and supplied them with report and my claim still got denied. This has been a frustrating process where The Claims investigators do not speak with me. All information is through communication to Claims Customer Service agents making notes to my account. PLEASE HELP!!!
I had about $2000 stolen from me due to fraud out if my BOA unemployment account. Over a year later I’m still fighting to get my funds returned to me. Also due to the negative balance from the fraud my unemployment payments were taken from me as well from BOA. This caused me tremendous financial hardship. I list my marriage and my home because of this.BOA should be ashamed if themselves. Please have an attorney call me or email me. I want to sue. I 2ant my money!!
My money was taken out of my way to go card several times over 1600 dollars was stolen from me.