Continued: Locked in a blame game with the bank

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The thieves who stole Katie Trottier's rent check in December used the account number to rack up $265 in charges with Sprint.

She lost nearly as much money to U.S. Bank through overdraft fees charged after her bank account was drained.

It took five months for Trottier to prove to U.S. Bank that the Sprint charges were fraudulent. Still, the bank wouldn't refund $244 in overdraft fees, even after her stolen check was found in a meth house in St. Paul.

"I had pretty much given up on getting my money back," she said.

Trottier, who has a brain injury that affects her memory, scribbled notes on every piece of paper she got from the bank so she could remember the conversations she had with countless bank employees. Finally, the 47-year-old former special education teacher decided to contact Whistleblower because she said other disabled people might not speak up if it happens to them.

After Whistleblower contacted U.S. Bank, a branch manager showed up at Trottier's doorstep this week to hand deliver a check for the overdraft fees.

While Trottier was happy with the outcome, she's still angry about how long it took to convince the bank that she was a victim, not the thief.

"They really messed up my life by failing to cooperate," she said.

Fraud was just the beginning

It was a few days before Christmas when someone got into Trottier's apartment building in south Minneapolis. The thieves broke the lock on a closet door in the hall, where tenants slip their rent checks through a slot, and made off with several checks and money orders.

Trottier didn't know anything was wrong until she received a notice from U.S. Bank informing her of three overdraft charges. A few days later she got notices of five more. The bank charged her a $35 fee for each overdraft plus an extra fee for having a negative balance in her account.

She was stunned, knowing she couldn't possibly have bounced that many checks.

"When you live on a fixed income, you know how much is in your account," she said.

A U.S. Bank employee told her that the bank had stopped a third fraudulent charge. Trottier was given a tracking number for that $300 charge and told to call Sprint so she could get information to file a police report.

"[U.S. Bank and Sprint] kept saying they couldn't help me without the other's cooperation," she said.

Trottier filed a fraud report on Feb. 3 with Minneapolis police. Then, in March, she got a call from St. Paul police Sgt. Tina Kill, who said Trottier's check, along with other checks and IDs, had been found in a "den of meth addicts" at 1076 Conway St.

"I told her that she needed to make a fraud report with U.S. Bank and they would be obligated to reimburse her because it was proven the money was a forgery," Kill said. "She can prove [the overdrafts] were 100 percent related to fraud."

In May, Trottier went back to a U.S. Bank branch and spoke with another employee who told her there was no record of a bank fraud investigation on her account. After looking at Trottier's police records and bank documentation, they agreed to refund the amount of the fraudulent phone charges, but not the overdraft fees.

U.S. Bank spokeswoman Jennifer Wendt said this week she's not sure why the overdraft fees weren't refunded at the same time. Because Trottier had closed her account in January, Wendt said, it took longer to reimburse her. The branch manager who visited Trottier said there was miscommunication among the branch employees and the bank's fraud investigators.

"It made her process more difficult than usual," Wendt said.

Trottier said she doesn't need the bank to tell her how difficult the past few months have been. After losing about half of her monthly income between the fraud and the bank fees, Trottier said, her friends and relatives were there to help pay for her groceries, gas and rent while her bank account sat empty.

She won't have to worry about burglars breaking into the closet again. Tenants at her apartment building now send their rent checks through the mail.

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628

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