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A federal judge has given Bank of America just ten days to start reopening fraud claims in a class action lawsuit alleging the financial institution left unemployment recipients high and dry in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tuesday’s order comes in the wake of an injunction issued on May 19 requiring the bank to provide urgently needed relief to Class Members who were frozen out of their unemployment accounts after reporting fraud to Bank of America. The lead plaintiffs and the bank reportedly agreed to the terms of the order as a result of the injunction.
In addition to reopening fraud claims, Bank of America must also commit to responding to calls from Class Members more quickly – taking no more than five minutes to answer calls at least 90 percent of the time, according to the order issued by U.S. District Judge Vincent Chhabria.
Bank of America must also provide a 24-hour, staffed call line to start fraud claims for Class Members.
Further, the bank will be barred from denying credit or closing claims without an investigation and such an investigation cannot consist of only an automated fraud filter, warned Judge Chhabria. Instead, the bank must provide Class Members a written explanation of its investigation in the event their claim is denied.
“The hardship to the defendant from this injunction is outweighed by its benefits to the class members,” concluded the judge’s order, which also noted that “the injunction is also in the public interest.”
“With this agreement, we are committing to additional measures to help those entitled to unemployment benefits receive those benefits as quickly as possible,” a Bank of America spokesperson told Law360.
Lead plaintiff, Jennifer Yick filed the class action lawsuit after seeing her unemployment funds drained by fraudsters. Yick claimed that Bank of America, the financial institution in charge of administering the unemployment benefits in California, didn’t do enough to properly protect fund recipients like her from potential fraud.
Yick’s claims were consolidated with nine other Bank of America class action lawsuits in March, though where the litigation will land is still undetermined.
A lawyer representing the plaintiffs told Law360 that now, in light of the order forcing Bank of America to reopen Class Members’ fraud claims, “the case will turn to the root cause of the massive card-hacking and plaintiffs’ allegation that the bank is responsible because of its penny-pinching decision to use outmoded magnetic stripe technology on all [unemployment insurance] debit cards instead of the far more secure EMV chip technology that the bank uses on all of its other credit and debit cards.”
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.
Lead counsel for the plaintiffs are Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP and Altshuler Berzon LLP. Bank of America is represented by Goodwin Proctor LLP and Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP.
The Unemployment Insurance Recipients Class Action Lawsuit is Yick v. Bank of America, N.A., Case No. 3:21-cv-00376, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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12 thoughts onBank of America Agrees to List of Relief for Unemployed Customers
Unemployment was supposed to give me 10k and and BOA only put 5k in my account. Half of my unemployment was missing I didn’t receive payments i was charged for overdrafts when i should have had a payment. now my account is completely closed where I cannot even access it when unemployment is charging me for overpayment that I never received.
Yes I’ve been a victim of fraud on my bank of America unemployment account. My account was frauded out of $2000. I put two claims in and over a year later am still fighting to get my monies back and have this resolved. I’ve had the claims denied , I’ve put reconsideration in and they were approved, they sent me letters saying the monies were put in the account but intact were taken out again. This has been an ongoing battle with BOA. This has caused my family great financial losses. It has put such a strain over finances that my marriage split and my housing was evicted due to late or bo rent. This was in the midst of Corona and has caused me mental and physical illness. I would appreciate if an attorney could contact me.
I was notified via email in May 2020, by the Unemployment Office that I need to certify for my benefits or lose them. When I got on the EDD website, I was informed that the EDD Office reopened my prior claim, due to the pandemic. I had 11 weeks I needed to certify for. By the time I received my new card, I had all 13 weeks of payments on my card. (This is when they were paying the extra $600./wk) I didn’t hear anything else from them, so I thought my payments were done.
On January 02, 2021 I receive an email from EDD, stating my current claim was being suspended due to suspected fraudulent activity. Then it stated, if I thought I was a victim of fraud, to fill out the fraud form. Which I did.
Come to find out, the EDD filed for an extension on my behalf, but I never knew, and someone else got my entire 13 weeks of payments. The end of January I was notified that my new claim would start in February and I could start certifying fir benefits.
(Mind you, I was never sent a new updated card, and I still have the old one, and it’s active) After certifying for 6 weeks and all claims stated “pending”. That’s when I found out about ALL the fraud claims going on at B of A with EDD accounts.
I contacted B of A about my pending claims. I was sent to, at least 4 other people, having to give them a lot of personal information. Finally after being on hold for 45 mins, someone picks up the phone, then it hangs up. I call right back and explain what happened, I had to go through the entire ordeal, AGAIN. This time when the fraud department got on the phone, I explained to the lady what happened and asked her, if we get disconnected, can she call me back. She said yes and wrote down my number, and the phone hung up. I NEVER GOT A CALL BACK. After trying 3-4 more times I finally got through to the fraud department, spoke to the representative and in 2 minutes my account was unfrozen. I started receiving my new benefits, on my old card. I then received a notice from EDD regarding the fraud claim. Telling me I had to go to the local UI Appeal office with all kinds of personal documents. I took all requested documents. 2 weeks later I received a Fully Favorable decision letter from the ALJ, stating the decision is reversed and the claim is payable, but EDD stated they weren’t paying me. Then I receive another notice, with some BS excuse of why they aren’t paying me. So, even though I had a favorable decision letter, I am currently appealing the new decision letter.
This lawsuit made things clear for me. EDD isn’t paying out for a claim that was already paid. B of A paid the fraudulent claim so they are the ones that I’m going to have to fight with for my money. They owe me close to $15,000.00
Please help me get my money.
Your experiences are just like my experiences with Bank Of America. I’ve been on hold for up to an hour and 45 minutes. Bank Of America and Zelle she allowed scammers in the Philippines to take $500 out of my account even though they had three days to stop the transaction. And they knew and I knew that it was a scam. The reason why Bank of America and other banks won’t do anything is because they make money off of every transaction, a certain percentage. So they’re not going to do anything to help us. Good for you I hope you win.
Yes Bank of America’s got me twice in one week. the first time On oct 25th 2021 I called them three times because I had an email alert that somebody changed the information on my account and it wasn’t me. They denied me service. on the third call they sent me to the bank, when I left my house there was no new charges on my account. by the time I got to the bank they had given away $5,000 from my account. after 2 days of sitting in the bank parking lot being verified by a teller to every person I was transferred to I finally got everything figured out and they told me I have to wait 45 days for them to figure out if they’re going to give me back the money that they took and gave to someone else. 4 days later I finally get my new card in the mail, three days later they let the exact same thing happen. now I get to go back to the bank and spend all day there again today. I don’t even know if the $1,200 I had left in there is going to be there when I get there now because they locked me out of my own account I still had access before I called them tonight. please add me to this lawsuit!!!
This is just unbelievable. I’ve had this happen also and money taken out of my account while I was standing there at the Tellers desk and watching my account being emptied by somebody’s pizza store in New Jersey while I lived in Florida. I couldn’t get Bank Of America to stop it, so I wrote out a withdrawal slip and took every dime out of my account so that whatever money they tried to take out it just bounced. And then I dared Bank Of America to charge me $35 overdraft. I dared them. I was told by a Bank of America agent that there are absolute ways that banks can stop this fraud except that every time your account goes low because of a fraud Bank of America makes $35 in overdraft fees. So they won’t do anything about scammers because Bank Of America and other banks make money when you are overdrawn. Now you know. What a racket.
I’m dealing with this now and they told me I won’t get my money in my account which is almost $7000
My account was frozen and had $8,000.00 missing from My account when they had unfrozen my account bank of America kept tell me I had a fraudulent case with edd and to contact edd for two months or more they kept telling me that
My account was frozen for three months without notice of freezing my account. It was stated that there was fraud on my account but the bank could not advise what fraud was on the account and did not provide information why my account was flagged for fraud. Then when I finally got the account opened I reported fraud on my account and was told that my account would be locked and I would not be able to access my funds if I wanted to pursue the unauthorized transactions that the only thing I could do is change my card but I wouldn’t be able to get the money back that was taken from me.
I do not know how many times my account has been frozen at 3 o’clock in the morning when I’m at the grocery store at an all night grocery when I like to shop and nobody’s there, and because it “looks like suspicious activity,“ Bank of America shuts down my account without telling me. How embarrassing. And before they change their system, I had to wait up to 45 minutes to get somebody on the phone at Bank of America to unlock my account and tell them all kinds of information with people standing around me listening to my Social Security number my telephone my address and so on. I don’t know why Bank of America does not notify people when they freeze your account. That’s a very least I could do. Good for you.
I have been talking to bank america for the past 2 weeks they have opened my claim again but refuse to issue me provisional credit they froze my account over 6 months ago because I reported fraud on my account involving a family member and even sent them the police report and I’m still getting nothing what can I do please help
This same thing happened to me. $8000 was stolen from me. I had all these transactions they claimed I made when I hadn’t used my card. Then they froze my account and told me they had looked into my claim to find that I made the transactions. I’m still pissed off about it