<prompt> Human: On the night of November 1stearly morning of November 2nd, someone made 8 separate withdrawals of 600 eachTotal 4800 at ATM machines in Tarrytown, White Plains, and lower Manhattan from my dads account and then phone transferred another 5000 from his savings account to his checking account. Then the thief made three purchases at Target with a debit card, charging 1000, 2000, and 2000 respectively. The total amount that was taken out of my fathers account was 9,800.When he checked his email on November 4th, my father immediately called Bank of America and notified them of the fraud and filed two claims one for the saving and one for the checking accounts.After waiting several business days for the result of the investigation, my father called BofA to check on the status of the claim and was told the claims could not be paid because they did not see any errors on their part with their system! They reopened the claim but then closed it again several days later.I dont understand how the bank can deny responsibility. My dad has never told anyone the pin number for his debit cardnot even members of his own family. When you put money in a bank, it is suppose to be safe and now he feels violated because not only was this money stolen from him, but now they are trying to say that they are not at fault.He was informed by a BofA associate that someone had called in requesting a new debit card on Oct. 27, 2016, but he did not make a call to BofA on that date. I dont understand why the bank would allow this unusual activity to go through, or how they could let a thief phone transfer his money between his savings and checking accounts! Also, how can the bank authorize a new debit card to be mailed and what exactly is required for this request to be granted? He did not make the call to request a new debit card! Where are the security checks in place for any of this?My father filed a police report and the detectives assured him at that time that the bank would return the cash. They said that as long as the fraud is reported within 60 days, the bank has an obligation to return the funds.The last time he spoke with a BofA manager in a local branch, they actually reassured him that he would be getting his money back and that the process just takes time.But this is the letter that my father received from BofA today:Weve completed our investigation of your above referenced claim and based on our findings, were unable to honor the claimbecause the transfer was made to an account that you own and the funds were made available to you for personal use, used topay an obligation owed by you, or both. As a result, were respectfully denying your claim.What you need to know We based our decision on our records and the information you provided when you contacted us about your account.If youhave additional information pertaining to the transactions, please contact us at the toll-free number listed below. You may request copies of the documents used in our investigation and well mail the information to you for your records. We now consider this claim closed.Were here to helpPlease call us toll-free at 1.800.317.6345, Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET, if you haveany questions.Fraud and ClaimsAt this point, what should he be doing? Contacting the local news? Getting a lawyer and suing BofA? I asked him to mail a certified letter with return receipt to BofA so that there is a paper trail of all of this.According to the FTC, he should be fully covered.Edit: Thank you all for your replies and comments. I will do research into what federal agencies to file complaint at and I will keep everyone updated on any additional details. In the meantime, I will try to answer some of the questions that were posed:1 The thief called BofA and requested a new atmdebit card on October 27th and it was mailed to my parents home address. I believe that whoever called BofA to request the card also stole it from the mail. My moms account at BofA was not compromised but my parents were very upset and did not want to take any chances, so they requested replacement cards for both their accounts their accounts are not linked after the incident. BOfA mailed my dads debitatm card and pin on separate days as requested, but my moms new debitatm card and pin still arrived in the mail on the same day. I am guessing that this is how the thief was able to get ahold of the cardpin. 2 A lot of people are asking why the withdrawal limit was so high. My dad received a letter in the mail a few days after the fraud occurred letting them know that their withdrawal limit was increased to 2400. Apparently, the thief called in and requested to increase the daily limit. They then made 4x600 withdrawals right before midnight on November 1st, and 4x600 withdrawals in the early morning of November 2nd. By the time my dad got the notice that his withdrawal limit had been increased, his money was already long gone.3 I have no idea why the thief had to do a phone transfer to move the remaining 5k from the savings account to the checking account. I would think that you could do a transfer right at the ATM. I think there should be a recording of all of these various phone transactions and BofA frankly does not care to look into them. They also dont care to look at the videos from the ATMs. Edit2: UpdateGreat news! Bank of America has returned the money to my dads bank account. He received an email to log into his BofA account to check some new messages. After he logged in, he saw that his funds had been returned and the messages stated that his subsequent follow up claims had been approved.The next step is to find out from BofA and exactly what information the perpetrator had that allowed them to request a new debit card from BofA to be mailed to my dads address. I saw a lot of comments that asked why my dad didnt file a police report, but he did! I realize that the first post was a huge block of text, but I did mention that he filed a police report. Its just buried in that text. A lot of people also mentioned that it might be someone close to him such a a family member, but this is pretty much impossible. My mom and dad immigrated to the US over 30 years ago, so we actually dont have any other family members here, as the rest of the extended family is overseas. Im their only child and I live on the west coast while they still live in NY. I also doubt that they fell into bad company because they are some of the most straight laced boring people youll ever meet, lol. They dont drink, gamble, smoke, etc. In any case, the next step is definitely to figure out how this happened in the first place. Hopefully BofA will be able to provide us more information in that regards.Assistant: My first question is, how is this ever possible? Bank of America has a daily withdrawal limit of 700 per day per ATM card, and its generally quite difficult to get them to work around those limits.Secondly, Im assuming based on your description that someone called posing as your father, requested a change of address, and then requested a new debit card. Having work in bank customer service in the past, this would always be a HUGE red flag and would not be allowed unless you could answer a litany of very specific security questions.Human: The same person called in and requested that they increase the maximum withdrawal on his bank account to 2400 a day. Then they made 4x600 at like 11pm on the night of November 1st and then another 4x600 after midnight, in the wee hours of November 2nd. My day got a letter in the mail a few days later stating that his account withdrawal allowance has been increased to 2400 a day. By the time the letter arrived, the money was already gone.I have no idea how any of this is even possible. I would think that they need to answer security questions in order to increase the limit as well as request a new debit card. Also, I would think that the calls need to be made from a home phone or listed cell phone. We asked the bank agent all of these questions and they have not been forthcoming with information!  <response>: Someone upthread mentioned it could be a bank employee doing the scam, and another person had the manager at the bank d something similar to them... that could definitely be whats going on with you. Its really suspicious that they had the ability to do all that stuff, all the correct info, passwords and stuff. 