I got bank frauded, and they want me to pay it back, what can I do?

This happend I believe on (tuesday) January 12 or 13th, I was at a party at Rutgers University with a couple friends, and at some point through the night I believe that I lost my debit car. I had work and school then next couple days so I was busy, then I checked my online banking on like Friday and saw that my account had been hacked or frauded. It said that someone used my debit card to go buy things at several stores (Nordstroms, etc..), and then passed a fake check with my forged name on it into my account. They then took the money out (a little more than 4000 dollars) and then a couple days later the check obviously bounced. I then owed Bank of America over 4000 dollars, I tried to go through with them in their claims department several times, but in the end I believe they just refunded the Debit card transactions, and not the fake check. They ended up telling me it was my fault that it happened, because my pin was probably on my debit card so then I would have to pay back the 4000 and there was nothing else they could do. Now I never made a police report because they told me orignally they would go ahead and do it themselves. Then they flipped the script on me telling me why I didnt make a police report, and that they thought i probably did it.

Now they could check the cameras of the banks branches that I DID NOT ever go into and deposit/take out that false money. They have since sent my account to NCO Financial Debt Collection company, and are telling me I will face legal problems if I dont pay up. I'm a broke college student, trynna to barely help my mom out with rent with the little money I can make in this recession. What can I do? Can I fight this again? I dont want my credit to be ruined over this and I dont know what to do anymore. I dont want to get my wages garnished for this.
Additional Details
I live in NJ

anonymous

Sounds pretty serious. I would go and file a police report now. Better late than never. They can prove its not you by the signature on the check. Even though forged they can have a handwriting specialist confirm that it's not you. Also, they should have cameras where that check was used at. Get the name of the place and the time and call the store. I feel for you because I had someone from I believe it was Applebees that when I paid for my meal with my debit card I gave my card to the waiter who then wrote down my numbers and made a fake debit card with my info. They went on a shopping spree and bought gas, computer from best buy, and went out to eat on it. All together they spent over 4,000.00. I would've never known until the fraudelent bank dept. called me at work to confirm all the transactions. I was like, what??? I have my atm card with me so how did this happen? I looked on my bank acct. on line and sure enough all these transactions took place all in 2 days. I was furious and I did all my own investigating and called best buy and spoke with the surveilence guy manager and they looked it up on tape and caught the son of a b*** who did this. I pressed charges and he went to jail. But this took approx 6 months for everything to be straightened out. I even had my bank acct froze and another atm card sent to me. I'll tell you one thing, I will never hand over my atm card to any waiter again. They have to swipe it right in front of my eyes or else!!! I say do some investigating on your own and call your bank with your proof and show them your police report. It will be worth it in the long run. I wish you the best of luck. I know how frustrating it can be. We learn from our mistakes and just be more careful with that atm card from now on. Good luck.

Union_Dooz

If it was truly fraud. You need to explain this to your institution immediately. They have a fraud department that deal with these things. You are not legally responsible for charges that you did not make.

alines

A third party cannot file a police report for you. You are the victim so you are the only person who can describe what happened. Maybe you need to talk to your parents and see about hiring a lawyer and/or filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in your area. Sounds like there some mix up with how the charges were investigated and what you were told to do. I hope you kept some record of who you spoke to at the bank and especially who told you that the bank would file a police report. That's wrong.

Khushi

Maybe you didn't realise it at the time, but you would have signed an agreement when the card was issue to you. It's the terms of this agreement that will determine whether or not you are liable in this case. I'd ask your bank for a copy if you don't have one.

Artman

So you filed no police report???? That was a huge mistake. Now the bank can question the veracity of your claim, they can even suggest that you are running some scam.

Besides if you read the contract, it states that you have a minimun amount of time to report the card stolen, if you fail to do so then you are responsible, so if you signed that agreement they can prove you failed to report on time then you are resposible of the money.

As for they filing a police report, that's very unlikely to be right (probably you got it wrong) you have to file your own report and the bank file their own report to the police and insurance company.

Tracy L

This is terrible for you. Change banks. When I got defrauded my bank took care of everything and put every penny back in my account.
Get some legal advice on this, it doesn't sound right to me. You can find some free legal advice here: http://www.freeadvice.com/all_topics.php

tony b

Similar thing happened to my wife and myself. Our bank advised us to call the police and make a full report. That way we would be covered by the banks insurance. Without a police report there is no evidence of fraud. It doesnt matter who cashed the checks or used your card. You are reponsible until you can prove otherwise and the only way to do that is a police report. No considering this happend in January the police wont be too happy becasue i tell you know there will be no video evidence. Without the police report your bank holds you responsible becasue you havnt reported it as a crime. So in effect they argue you could have spent the money and then tried to get the money back.
what happened with us was some one stole mail from our mail box, got a bank statement and cancelled checks.. they then used the numbers to creat new checks and used them at Walmart becasue walmart dont check ids if you are in the system. Luckily we filed a police report and our bank helped and we recovered the $2000..
The police report was important as the bank submitted it to thier insurance and to Walmart to show why they wouldnt honor any more checks on the account. We changed account numbers too.
I wored as a police service tech and

dizzle

This story is the reason NOT to go get drunk at a party...you should be more responsible and stop acting like a 15 year old

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