I was recently scammed by Chime bank shortly before my first $20 deposit went through. After getting one of the text codes wrong Chime locked me out of the account. They then asked for an image of the front and back of my drivers license in order for them to reactivate the account. This is where the scam starts.
Now that they have a reasonable excuse to have locked the account, why not just keep the account locked indefinitely and keep the money? I believe this is what they are doing.
They asked for the front and back images of my drivers license which I sent. They then stated they needed a utility bill which I also sent. Then they follow up that they need another photo of the drivers license with a different colored background. I complied and did all of these things with perfectly clear and easy to read images.
They then follow up over and over asking for the same thing with a different background. If you ask them what is the specific issue with the image, they fail to respond but just respond with the same canned response and hope that the user gives up and they get to keep the money or hold it as long as possible.
I got a certified letter recently from the FDIC holding bank, Stride Bank with basically the same message asking for the front and back of the drivers license on a different background.
Stride Bank spent $8.10 on this certified letter only to tell me the same thing. What is funny is that the inside of the envelop has “FDIC” patterns on the envelope to make the scam seem more official
The letter shows that it was sent from the Vice President of Enterprise Risk and the name is a very scammy name. The name looks like “Wallet Shaker” which is up there with Bernie Madoff (Made Off). The name is only signed, not printed out so I have no idea what the exact name is.
So the goal, in my opinion, is to get me to keep goofing around with Chime sending images over and over and them failing to accept. I am not going to fall for this. I am going to ask for full refund and will not fall for the verification scam or work with them in any such way.
So I guess the next step is to do a follow up complaint with the Office of the Currency Controller again and ask for a full refund for my deposited amount which I already did or wait for my CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) complaint with Chime to be responded too which it has not been.
Just email them the photos. Use a scanner or scanner app with a white piece of paper behind it so its on 8.5×11. I had a similar issue but my files were too small and pixelated everytime i sent in because of my phone shrinking them. I finally sent the full size images in and everything was fixed.