A BUSINESS owner claimed that he lost thousands of dollars due to fraud but was told he missed an important deadline to claim his money back.
Mike Mitchell, from Winter Park, Florida, around seven miles north of Orlando, claimed that $3,700 was transferred in a payment he supposedly did not authorize.
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The owner of the home rental company M&M Building Enterprises LLC said the money was transferred to a parking fee company called Pay-By-Phone, according to CBS affiliate WKMG-TV.
Mitchell added that his bank Wells Fargo refused to issue back the $3,700 because he did not report the incident on his business account within a mandated 24-hour timeframe.
The bank reportedly told Mitchell he should have reported the suspected Automatic Clearing House fraud within that time.
He claimed that he reported the ACH fraud two hours and 34 minutes after the deadline.
Mitchell said: “If you don’t notify somebody by 3 o’clock — bye-bye money.”
The case was initially closed on May, 3, as the bank said it found no evidence of fraud but later reopened the case, following an investigation by WKMG-TV.
The case was closed again two weeks ago without a resolution.
Mitchell claimed his information had been stolen as he did not approve the ACH payment.
The Florida man claimed a Wells Frago representative in Iowa confirmed the money was sent to a merchant account at Certegy Card Services, an ACH service often used by retailers.
He also alleged that Certegy declined to return the money and Mitchell said: “Somehow the ‘Merchant,’ Credit Card Payment, received our account information (bank number and routing number is all that is needed) and initiated the ACH transaction for $3,771.99.”
The representative also allegedly said: “Wells Fargo requested the funds be returned from the ‘Originating Bank,’ Certegy Card Services, but the Originating Bank refused to return the money.”
Mitchell also claimed that the bank did not think he authorized the payment.
He also claimed that he had never created an account with Pay-By-Phone so did not understand how his personal information was supposedly accessed.
Mitchell has since closed all seven of his Wells Frago accounts.
A spokesperson for Wells Frago told WKMG-TV that there was no evidence that the account was hacked or compromised.
Wells Fargo said: “There was no unauthorized account access related to this payment.
“The merchant’s bank originated this ACH transaction and we (Wells Fargo) provided the information to our customer to resolve the payment dispute with the merchant and merchant’s bank.”
The US Sun has reached out to Wells Fargo for comment.
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