J.W.
Open a new account to transact on but leave this one open while they investigate. Once they are done and the money is returned transfer the money, via a withdrawal and deposit, not a direct transfer, and then close the other account.
ok so yesterday after work when my fiance checked the balance on our account there was only 200$ in it and he still has to go until thursay to his next paycheck (he gets a direct deposit every 2 weeks) so he was like ok now i know theres no way that possible. hes been putting in alot of overtime and the last check he got was the biggest hes ever made so we should have ended up with plenty of money left before payday.. he went in the bank and went over the transactions with one of the people who work there.. turns out 2 things happened... 1- he transferred out 600$ to pay off a lean he had on him from when he was in the navy and ended up in a huge amount of credit card debt (his uncle had ran a credit check for him before turning in his taxes for this year and said if he didnt pay it he wouldnt et his tax return back they would reject it until he paid) so any way there was some soft of computer error and the money was transfrerred out twice instead of once... 2- there was all these online charges/withdrawals made from our account in long island, the bronx, ... all these random places in NY that neither of us have been ...
we've never had this happen to us before .. the bank froze our account pending and investigation they told him the account would be frozen for about 3 or 4 days and that the 600 would be put back into our account but it would take up to 3 weeks before that happens
my question is what do we do after the accounts unfrozen.. my fiance says go to the bank and hacve them change my pin number.. but i feel like thats not enough im worried about what will happen on thursday when his next deposit goes through (will someone still be able to access it).. if theyve made withdrawals then they must know our account number and all of that so what do i do.. i mean can the bank change the number on the account and give me a new debit card and pin.. do i have to close the account completely and take the money out and open a new one??? iv never been through this i have no idea what to expect wen i go to the bank on monday to figure this out .. i just feel like simply changing the pin number on the card isnt enough.. or even just getting a new card?? i dont know im so confused.. any advice would be greatly appreciated
thanks toeeryone who answer my question.. my fiance just called me and spoke to a bank representative they said it will take 10 days from the day they froze the account for the investigation to see if the fraudulent charges will be put back into our account.(fiance already had it flagged as fraud yesterday when he went there). they said that as of right now there was only 5$ left in the account when the froze it .. they said that his direct deposit goes through thursday at midnight so to come in first thing friday morning and open a new account and transfer the money n close the old account.. his mom is sending us a check for a few hundred $ (last of the money owed to him from working with his stepdad) .. and they will cash the check right then and there and give us the cash.. they told him that we werent the only ones this happened to it was the result of some kind of computer error.. im not totally sure of whats going on and neither is he was in the middle of putting a partitcian oup at work while he was talking to the person.. im still going to go in monday and see for myself wtf happened.. also that the 600 will be put back in our account its just going to take 3 weeks to do.. i guess he and the bank both already contacted the company from the navy account he had his credit card with... god this is so frustrating!
Open a new account to transact on but leave this one open while they investigate. Once they are done and the money is returned transfer the money, via a withdrawal and deposit, not a direct transfer, and then close the other account.
You need to change EVERYTHING. You also need to call the 3 major credit reporting agencies and get a fraud alert on your credit report. If you do this, anytime someone applies for a loan of any kind in your name, the agency calls YOU to verify if you are taking out a loan or applying for any credit.
I know this sucks but it couls get bigger if you are not proactive now. Stop and all automatic drafts and deposits until this is resolved. If you credit cards are linked to this account, get new ones with new numbers.
After all this is said.... if you have liens against you, then YES the IRS can legally go into your account and take what is theirs.
I would truly close that account and then open a new one. That may be the only way to stop any more transactions from being done.
A friend of mine got a new car. Lovely thing. Anyway, her hubby was on his way home from work, fell asleep, and had a wreck and totaled it. He was at the beginning of a bridge and went off the road. The bridge rail split the car in two. He lived so she was very very happy.
Their full coverage insurance paid the car of in full. The Finance company didn't get notified so they kept taking the money out of their bank account. The car was paid of entirely...they did not budget for the car payment and they had about 10 checks bounce. They called the finance company and were told they'd take care of it. They didn't. The next month the car payment was deducted from the checking account again.
She finally had to close that account and open a new one. Once she did that the finance company called her harassing her about not making the car payment. She again told them the car was paid off. They turned the account over to a collection agency...talk about dumb but eventually it was worked out but imagine how many months this family would have been without money while they were trying to play make up for all those overdraft fees. Her bank dropped all their charges but still, the credit report from the finance company and stuff ruined her credit for a while. Again, it was eventually cleared up but not for nearly a year.
There was recently a security breach at a credit card processing place and there are LOTS of accounts compromised. Most of the charges are in New York. It sounds like this is what happened to you. You need to open a new account and transfer what you can to the new account. If you haven't already, file fraud claims on those charges that you did not make. You can ask your bank if they could give you provisional credit for those charges, so that you have something to live on. (although, if the claims should be denied, you will need to pay that money back.) Watch your credit report closely!!!
How were the transactions paid for? Was it your debit card or did they have your actual account number?
If you are not sure, the bank will know which method. If it was your debit cards, the bank should automatically issue you new cards.
If it was they used transfers using your account number, you should close your current account and open a new one, along with a new debit cards.
Do NOT NOT NOT deposit any more funds into the frozen account. Your fiance should contact his employer first thing Monday morning and have the direct deposit stopped.
Open a new account. Once the current situation is cleared up, you should close that account.
Also, get a written statement from the bank stating that this mess is due to their computer error. You made need this in the future, as this could go on your credit report and prevent you from opening bank accounts in the future.
Also, all banks that I know of offer on-line access to your account. It only takes a few minutes to check, so access your account every few days and review the transactions.
I'd definitely go through the pains of opening a new account.
Dumb thieves!
This just happened in our area a few months ago. Apparently someone had put one of those little scanner machines on a local gas pump. So EVERYone that swiped their card at the pump got violated. We are in CA and the thieves got caught in Florida.
It's scary to know that our plastic is not a reliable form of money, yet most of us don't like walking around with cash on us.
We had this happen a couple of years ago, but caught it before too much damage was one (only one small transaction went through, a second larger one was stopped by our bank). The bank froze our account and voided our cards. They sent us new cards and new pins. We chose to keep the same account and never had problems again - however you can open a new checking account with your bank and close the old one once everything has been resolved - that way this account will be gone for good.
In the end we didn't loose any money and so far it hasn't happened again (it been at least 3 years). After this I only use our credit cards for online purchases... that way if anyone ever gets a hold of my number it is not tied to my checking account and I have a card with good protection from fraud.
Good luck.