USAA will fork over more than $12 million to service members, retirees and veteran account holders as a result of a recent settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Military Times’ Karen Jowers reported on Jan. 3.
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged that USAA “failed to properly resolve errors; failed to honor members’ requests to stop preauthorized payments through Electronic Fund Transfers; and that it reopened accounts without members’ authorization and without notifying them,” according to Military Times.
- The result of which is that the bank will pay $181.59 to each of the 66,240 USAA account holders who were “denied a reasonable investigation of the error they reported” to USAA, the Times reported.
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that “on numerous occasions, USAA representatives refused to investigate errors because they concerned payday loans,” according to a consent order from the settlement. USAA did not admit or deny the allegations.
- Additionally, the San Antonio, Texas-based bank was slapped with a $3.5 million fine, which it will have to pay to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reports American Banker.
- That said, the bank has been taking steps to repay members, with a spokesman telling Military Times that “USAA has been proactively addressing these issues for more than a year and most are resolved,” and that in 2017 the bank “began providing restitution payments to some affected members, and improved our procedures.”