Complaint Review: Green Dot Corporation - Pasadena California

Green Dot (i) facilitated the theft of money to be stolen from my account, (ii) made it near impossible for me to contact someone at Green Dot to take care of this problem, (iii) dragged its heals to take care of the problem, and (iv) when questioned about it, threatened me because I had the audacity to complain about Green Dot and Go Bank's practices that allowed a criminal offense to occur under its watch. Then after apologizing to me and swearing that it provided me with a phone number that I can pass onto law enforcement to investigate this matter, it turned out they provided me with a phony number. This means that Green Dot is letting its criminal customer go free without any accountability. My story is below.

Go Bank Facilitating Money to be Stolen from My Account

On November 29, 2015, I wrote a check to my property management company in the amount of $355 that I sent to my property management company's designated PO box via the mail. On December 3, 2015, someone used their Go Bank account under the name of Danielle or Lanell Freeman to cash the check. This individual was not authorized to cash this check on behalf of my property management company. '

On January 7, 2016, I discovered the check was fraudulently cashed. My property management company sent me a statement showing me delinquent on my HOA dues because they said I had not made my December payment, and they charged me a late fee. On January 7, they explained that they charged me a late fee because they claim to not have received the December payment.

When I discovered that the check was fraudulently cashed on January 7, I reported it to my bank, Bank of America. BofA informed me that Go Bank allowed an unauthorized person to cash the check. BofA then submitted a request to Go Bank that day to respond to this issue to refund my money. It is indisputable that my money would not have been stolen if Go Bank's processes were not such to allow it to get stolen. 

Green Dot and Go Bank's Processes Make it Near Impossible to Speak to a Representative

When I found out on January 7 that Go Bank fraudulently cashed my check, I immediately tried contacting Go Bank. However, I discovered that when someone calls their number, the automated system hangs up on you if you do not have an account with Go Bank. Then the next week, I learned from Bank of America that Go Bank had not responded to BofA's request. So, I found that Green Dot was the parent company of Go Bank and tried calling Green Dot. Again, upon calling Green Dot, I discovered that if you call Green Dot, its automated system hangs up on you if you do not have a Green Dot account.

So, I typed in an e-mail to GoBank's online feedback form on January 13, and I clicked on the "angry" emoji. On January 15, I received a call from Agnus, employee #0517. Agnus said she could not help me and could not provide me with any information. She refused to connect me to a supervisor and refused to provide me with a phone number that I could use to follow up with Go Bank. She did promise me a call back from someone within 24 hours. Unsurprisingly, that phone call never came.

On January 21, Bank of America contacted me to update me that Go Bank had still not responded to its requests for information about this incident. I am appalled that Green Dot and Go Bank showed a lack of urgency to handle this serious issue, and has set up its processes, seemingly intentionally, to make it impossible for someone to reach out to Green Dot or Go Bank to address this issue.

Green Dot's Poor Service and Threats to Me For Seeking to Resolve this Matter

Since I was threatened with late fees from my HOA board, and because Green Dot and Go Bank were seemingly not going to do anything to return my money without my escalation, I felt I had no other choice but to go directly to Green Dot's corporate headquarters in Pasadena to speak with a supervisor. When I arrived, I calmly asked the individual at the downstairs security desk to speak with a supervisor. I then calmly waited on the couch downstairs for a supervisor for over an hour.

I was finally received by Henry Roberson who represented himself as a supervisor. He took me aside and told me that he really should be calling the police on me for just showing up! So, let me get this straight. Green Dot (i) sets up a system where it is impossible to speak to a representative by phone, (ii) when a representative does call you in response to an e-mail that representative is completely unhelpful and promise you a phone call from a supervisor that never comes, (iii) when confronted by someone who was the victim of Go Bank facilitating a transaction where that individual's money was stolen, it threatens to call the police on that individual? In what world is that conduct okay? Though, as I told Mr. Roberson, I am happy to get the police involved and compare what I did to what Green Dot and Go Bank has done, and let them decide what action to take. That is because I did nothing wrong; Green Dot and Go Bank, however, did aid in the occurrence of a serious criminal offense.

Mr. Roberson then put me in touch with Bernie in Green Dot's Corporate Resolution Department. Bernie told me that although BofA sent the request to Go Bank on January 7, Go Bank did nothing to facilitate my request until January 21. Bernie said that it just so happened that Go Bank received the request from BofA on the very day that I walked into Green Dot's offices. This raises the question, if I had not taken the initiative, and risk being called the cops on to show up at Green Dot's office, how long would it have taken for Green Dot to even initiate the investigation? Weeks? Months? Then Bernie told me that it would take 2-3 more weeks before its investigation is complete, after it waited 2 weeks to even start the investigation. A 4-5 week timeline is inexcusable to respond to an urgent matter such as this.

Bernie then said that I could call him for updates about this case, and he promised that he would cal me with an update on January 22. That call never came. I then called him and spoke with him on January 25. He told me there was no update. I then tried calling him a week later on February 1, and left a message. He did not return my call. I called on February 2; and he did not return my call. 

I called on February 3, and I spoke with an individual named Joseph. He said Bernie was not there. I asked to speak to Bernie's supervisor. Joseph said he was Bernie's supervisor. When I told him I wanted information and this to be escalated, he then got mad at me for calling. He refused to provide me any substantive update about my case, and refused to provide me the phone number for the Office of the President. He said I should not be calling Go Bank because BofA provided me a provisional credit, suggested that Go Bank did nothing wrong, and then tried blaming this incident on Bank of America. I explained that the credit is "provisional," meaning that BofA can yank it at any time if Go Bank does not provide the money back - which up to this point, Green Dot/Go Bank has shown no willingness to do. Joseph then threatened to block my calls if I tried calling again. Again - whenever I question Green Dot's practices, Green Dot's response is to skirt responsibility and threaten and bully the victim.

I then called back and spoke with Cortez Morris. He then told me that there was no update in my case. He also refused to give me the phone number of the Office of the President, and specifically told me that the CEO of Green Dot would not be interested in hearing my complaint. Again, this reflects a lack of accountability on the part of Green Dot and an intentional decision to block the CEO/Office of the President from any interface with individuals who are victims of Green Dot's lax and shady security practices. Though Cortez was right; I did e-mail the CEO, Steven Streit, and he ignored my e-mail, showing that the evasive practices of Green Dot flows from the top on down.

Then the next week, Green Dot "changed" its corporate resolution number without telling me making it impossible to reach them. Only after I e-mailed Cortez did Bernie call me back telling me that Green Dot was going to return the money to my account, he was not going to provide any information to me about how it was stolen, and he refused to direct me to his supervisor. Just to be clear, I did not receive my money that Go Bank allowed to be stolen from my account until February 11 - 5 weeks after Bank of America submitted my claim to Go Bank requesting my money back.

Green Dot Continued to Deceive Me including by Providing a Phony Number to Pass to Law Enforcement

I only spoke with a supervisor after I sent a message to Green Dot's Public Relations e-mail address. Elizabeth Wayford, who represented herself as the District Manager of Customer Relations, called me professing that she was extremely sorry about how Green Dot treated me. She did tell me that this was allowed to happen because Green Dot only has advanced fraud security checks for high-value transactions, and apparently Green Dot does not consider a $355 check to be a high value transaction. So Green Dot just let a criminal steal $355 from my account without properly checking whether that individual was authorized to receive that money. She also told me that Green Dot constantly changes its corporate resolution phone numbers, which I have never heard a respectable company do before. This appears to me to be a deliberate attempt to evade accountability. But she did provide me a phone number to pass onto law enforcement that she assured me that law enforcement can contact to obtain the information it needs to complete its investigation of who stole my money, since Green Dotrefused to provide that information to me.

It turns out that was a lie. On February 17, in preparation for a call that I was going to have with law enforcement, I tried calling the number that Elizabeth provided me to make sure it was a working number. I was not able to get through. So it appears that once again, Green Dot has evaded accountability by making it impossible to reach Green Dot. But what is more serious is that this time, Green Dot appears to be dodging law enforcement by giving me a phony phone number. So rather than give me a working phone number, Green Dot prefers to apparently harbor its criminal customers by making it impossible for law enforcement to contact GreenDot.

Overall, Green Dot engages in disgusting behavior. Green Dot allowed my money to be stolen, has taken up countless hours of my time, threatened me, lied to me, and now is taking evasive action to prevent me from getting justice. People should avoid Green Dot, and its subsidiaries such as Go Bank. But people should be vigilant in watching out for Green Dot's shady practices even if they do not choose to do business with Green Dot. Because as you can see from my experiences, even if you do not initiate a business relationship with Green Dot, they may still find a way to try and wreck your life.