New York Post Reports that Bank of America Wants Their Money - from the Victim

By Aly Adair

Chuck Bennett of the New York Post reported Monday, that Gloria Carlo, 51, of The Bronx, was slapped with a lawsuit by Bank of America for $23,312.04. Bennett reports that Carlo was a victim of identity theft and the thieves emptied her life savings from her five Bank of America accounts between August and October of 2005.

The thieves allegedly used her accounts to make purchases on Jewelry Television, Shop NBC, QVC, and Home Shopping Network. On one September day alone, her bank statement showed 37 transactions to Jewelry Television that lowered a single account balance from $9,286 to $5,074. The day before, nine transactions to Shop NBC made a balance in another account go from $913 to a negative $3,993, according to the New York Post article. Carlo ended up with a total overdraft of $20,000 before it all ended.

Carlo thought she did everything right: she called police, filed a report, filed an affidavit of fraud, and repeatedly protested to the bank, who according to Carlo, did not reply. Her efforts to clear up the situation were delayed when her mother and brother died, and she ended up in the hospital for heart failure and pulmonary embolism. When Carlo got home from her three-day stay at the hospital, she found a court summons under her door informing her that Bank of America was filing suit against her.

The bank claims that the $23,312.04 was money that Carlo used on the two-month shopping spree after she already depleted her entire savings account worth $38,000. Bank of America declined to comment to the New York Post, but Carlo said, "It was enough to open a jewelry shop. Why would I do this? The bank is a bigger villain than the thief."

In the report, Carlo tells reporter Chuck Bennett that a separate $30,000 seven-year CD also disappeared. According to Carlo, she never received a phone call or alert from the bank that her accounts were being used excessively for television shopping, and inquiring as to whether the charges were being made by her. Carlo wants to know why the bank did not see the huge overdrafts and do something about them. She said in the report, "What kind of bank would give an overdraft of $23,000? We are not talking about $100."

Carlo is a retired clerk with New York's Human Resources Administration and lives on her $2,110 per month pension and Social Security disability benefits. She has hired a lawyer, and according to the lawyer, she has lost a total of $68,733.77 in the alleged identity-theft scam.

More resources

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05212007/news/regionalnews/dough_unto_others_regionalnews_chuck_bennett.htm

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/254176/bank_of_america_sues_id_theft_victim.html