(I've never done an "update" post before, so apologies if any formatting or something is off)

Original Post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/xxj3f0/comment/irj2uuy/?context=3

Figured I'd come back and give an update on this. While I was doing lots of reading online, I landed on some reddit posts, and always appreciate seeing some get an update, so maybe it helps someone, or gives some hope should someone else be in a similar situation.

TLDR first: BMO/MC covered the entire amount, plus interest and fees but holy crap was that painful and like pulling teeth. 1/10 stars for customer service.

Couple tips if you are reading this and in a similar situation: My biggest one, is don't wait for them to decline the claim. Go to the bank, report the fraud, and I would immediately log a complaint with executive resolution. In our case, the bank said "Don't worry, it'll be covered" then changed their story 2 months later. Dealing with the fraud department was a massive waste of time for 2 months and probably just delayed the whole process. The Debit card Code of Conduct helped me, and the June 30th Revised FCAC lay out pretty strict rules for dealing with complaints.

I absolutely think this part of the Code Conduct helped me as well

"where the cardholder has been the victim of fraud, theft, or has been coerced by trickery, force or intimidation, provided that the cardholder reports the incident promptly and co-operates fully in any subsequent investigation"

A couple comments I'll make based on my OP and the replies.

– Thanks to any and all that tried to give advice!

– Some replies were pretty quick and really wanted to share relationship advice. Other posters pointed out this wasn't that sub for that, so I appreciate that and couldn't agree more.

– Both my post, and many similar posts have a lot of comments around "You're a sucker, you don't deserve the money back blah blah blah" and while if that is your opinion, fair enough, I would also say, that's not Financial Advice, and for people coming to this sub looking for help, you aren't helping at all, and really your just being an ass and to move on. Wishful thinking I know, but oh well.

– I shared a link in my OP to the Debit Card Code of Conduct. While it was pointed out this is for Debit cards, not CCs, I actually found it in my card holder agreement for my MC as well, and it absolutely helped me argue my case, and at no point was I told by MC that it did not apply (which I would then have argued, WTF did you put it in my Card Holder agreement if it doesn't apply?!)

Ok if you're still with me and want to read all the funs things that I went through, long post incoming.

My original post was early October. After my post, a couple weeks later, as I continued to call the fraud line (90 minutes on hold each and every time) I was eventually told on a Friday "We have declined your claim, and you will receive a letter letting you know your next options". Well shit! Instead of waiting for the letter, I googled escalation tier 2, and immediately lodged a complaint with their executive resolution team and was told I'd get a call within 48 hours. Wife and I sat down that night to start talking about budgeting etc. . ., but by the end of our conversation, around 10pm, our MC had the full amount credited back. Ok, that's weird, and I'm skeptical, but would a bank "accidently" refund $30k? Anyway, with a bit of skepticism, we went and saw the branch manager the next day to reverse everything onto the LOC. She was pretty happy for us, she ended up having to play phone tag with MC and some different departments, but after about an hour or two of her talking with them, she reversed everything! Rejoice, my wife went and bought her some flowers from the store nearby and that was it.

But wait there's more. By the following Wednesday, the entire sum is BACK onto our CC, along with quite a few "over limit" charges of course. WTF. Also it's Wednesday, my wife is travelling and having our card declined for meals, and I've still not received a call from the Executive Resolution team. So I call and lodge another complaint, after going back to the branch and being told by them that there is nothing they can do.

By the Friday (now 7 days after my first complaint), the end of October, I receive a call from a nice lady from the Executive Resolution team. She was very compassionate, and said she'd be handling the case from here on out. Even on this phone call, as she was reviewing the case, she made a couple comments along the lines of "well that's odd; don't know why they did that; I'll need to coach that person", but she now has it and to give her a couple weeks.

Over the next month, we'd touch base here and there, but essentially no updates. In late November, someone from the Fraud department called my wife to get her account of the situation. This was the first time anyone from MC/BMO had reached out to her for any actual information, accounting of the events, or police report. We were informed that we should have a decision the following week.

After radio silence and some frustration by me that following week, by end of week, I sent a pretty long email, basically going through all the points where I felt BMO had dropped the ball, were not complying with their own code of conducts, were not complying with FCAC regulations (I still had not ever received a single confirmation of my complaint being addressed or anything) and some other points. I am sure my interpretation of some of them were maybe off, but there was a ton of misses for sure. After that email, on the Monday got a call from the same case manager, and basically expressing sympathy, but still saying they need more time, and if I wanted to escalate to an Ombudsman, I could, but that I might be better off with her. At this point, I did feel she was being a good advocate, so I agreed with her to keep waiting. She did share at this point, because I still had no explanation on why in October I had the full amount credited back and then yanked that this was because they issued a charge back on the Friday, given the "temp" credit, but then the chargeback failed on Wednesday. I get it, but pretty ridiculous that all that was done without any communication to me, or even the branch manager the day she was reversing everything. From a customer service standpoint, I thought this was pretty incredibly bad.

Another 2-3 weeks go by, and we are now middle of December. I get a follow up call on the Friday, saying still no answer, but its close and I should be pleased. Ok well that sounds good, I'll wait. On the following Tuesday, I get a call, and I am informed they are going to cover $26k of $29k, which even to my case manager is weird, so she again asks for some more time to find out why not the full amount.

Another week goes by, and I get a call confirming they will cover the full amount! Woot and they are working on reversing all the charges (we had some back and forth on a number of the misc. charges they missed, but after awhile, we eventually got it right.) Perfect, all done. And my complaint case is closed, approx. 55 days after opening it (semi-significant if you know the FCAC rules)

LOC is now back to zero, and the MC now has a $56k credit on it. Sorry what?! Why is my MC overpaid? Back to calling my case manager. Well you see, so many teams were involved that there is now confusion on who is doing what, and now they've reversed the LOC amount, but then double refunded onto my CC as well. Surely they can reverse this quickly. One half of the large overpayment is reversed, but about $18k is still there.

Nope, going into Christmas, still there. I email, no response. Boxing week, still there, I email. I think on Dec 29th I get a response saying it will be taken care of.

Today, January 12th, I still have a $18k credit on MC that I am waiting to disappear. Hopefully this week. I'm actually still waiting on the LOC interest to get reversed, but there are some vacations at the branch, and I've been told it'll be done by EOW next week. So I'll wait for that.

So if you read all, that's for sticking with me. I skipped over most of the conversations the case manager and I had but almost each week we were talking. Overall, she was quite good and helpful, and I definitely got the impression that she was always doing what she could, but was tied up by other departments. At one point, we just had to wait a week for more info because someone else was on vacation. But overall, I definitely appreciated her support. Here's hoping by EOW the rest of the credit is gone, and next week the LOC interest is fixed.

Towards the end, I did ask some questions like "Why did I never receive that letter of my claim being declined", "why didn't a receive a acknowledgement of my complaint", "why wasn't a complaint logged the first time I expressed displeasure when calling the fraud department", and was basically told, We don't know why, our bad, and the FCAC rules are still pretty new to us, so yeah. Seems pretty ridiculous that a Big5 bank isn't expected to immediately follow any new banking legislation to me?

Obviously glad it was covered, but from a customer service standpoint, the whole thing was ridiculous. And in a time when every product BMO offers is available somewhere else at a better price/rate, you'd think they'd be a bit more on top of the customer service/being human side of things as that is what the big banks are trying to sell us is their big advantage over their disruptive competitors. I'm not really sure why I bank with them now to be honest, and will be evaluating that in the near future.

I did a quick proof read, but I gotta go help with dinner now, so apologies if I missed any typos.