Miami

Money Missing After Funds Transferred Between Banks

Scott Davis is a busy man, overseeing a major construction project in downtown Miami.

He’s also a father, who wanted to send $700 to his son living in California. On November 12th, Scott went online and initiated a transfer into a joint bank account he has with his son.

Five days later, he took a screen shot showing the funds were available.

"The money was there," Davis said. "Our son said, 'Thank you. Awesome, Dad! Can’t wait to get my new TV.'"

What Davis says he didn’t know was that the account had been closed for inactivity on November 16th. He found this out after a check his son wrote bounced.

"All of a sudden there was no money," Davis said.  "The next morning, he went by a branch and tried to reconcile it and they were basically saying, 'We don’t know what happened to the money but there’s no record of it ever being there.'"

Davis took the screen shots documenting the transfer and went to a Wells Fargo branch in Miami, but still received no clear answers.

"Their exact words were, 'It’s out there somewhere in cyberspace and if you want it, you’re going to have to go back to your bank that you took the money from and ask them to recall it,'" he said.

Davis decided to turn to NBC 6 Responds instead. Our team got right to work and later that same day, Davis received the news he had been waiting for.

"Wells Fargo called me and said, ‘Hey, we found your money. Where would you like to have it deposited?'" Davis said he was told.  "I was absolutely ecstatic that NBC 6 was able to do for us, to get Wells Fargo to see what apparently I couldn’t achieve by sitting at the bank or talking to them online."

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo said she could not give details about Davis’ account, citing client confidentiality. But, she provided the following statement:

"For the protection of our customers, Wells Fargo may choose to close any account when there are extensive periods of inactivity coupled with a zero account balance. This is a measure put in place to mitigate the potential for fraudulent use of inactive accounts and prevent the charging of monthly fees on accounts customers are no longer using. To prevent accounts from being automatically closed when the balance is zero, customers are encouraged to keep a positive balance or regularly complete transactions on each of their accounts."

Davis, meanwhile, says the bank also issued a refund for a $10 insufficient funds fee his son had to pay when the check bounced. He says he’s glad he took the time to screen shot every step of the online banking transaction. He believes it helped prove his case.

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