TMobile took money out of my account. How to proceed?

If I self-file a lawsuit, can TMobile require arbitration here

Why? According to what you described, the charge is unrelated to any contract you have with them. But even if they do, you'd still go through the same process of discovery, presenting evidence, etc. I'd suggest not self-filing, but using a licensed attorney since TMobile would most definitely have one.

You may consider small-claims suit, in which case the process is less onerous and attorneys are not allowed in court, but you'd probably still want to talk to an attorney to evaluate the feasibility and chances of success.

My bank won't reverse the transaction (>60 days old).

This is on you, and will be used against you in any proceedings.

"We didn't initiate the transaction - one of our customers did."

Sounds like someone bought something from them using your account as a payment method. You may not be able to prove that that someone wasn't you. You'll need to show a certain level of responsibility on their end to demand the court to hold them accountable, so an attorney would be useful on that point.

Summary of the discussions in comments (assuming the OP is in the US):

• The consumer protections apply if the fraud claim is raised with the bank within 60 days from the statement (CFPB). If so, the bank would ask the vendor to justify the charge and reverse if they cannot. Once the claim period expired, the bank is no longer required to do that. Asking the bank to change the account number might still be a good idea.

• In civil claims the plaintiff bears the burden of proof. If you decide to file a lawsuit, you'll be required to prove all the alleged facts against the respondent. Including that the withdrawal was unauthorized, and that they knew, or should have known, that it was unauthorized. This may end up being a surprisingly high bar, depending on the circumstances.

• It is possible that TMobile would settle your lawsuit just to make you go away. But if they decide to fight it - see above. In the end, your beef is with the impersonator, and TMobile and the bank may end up successfully defending themselves. It is unlikely that you'd be able to find that impersonator if you don't already know who that is.

I am going to disagree with littleadv a bit here. This is exactly the kind of thing small claims court is useful for. In most jurisdictions it is open to a suit less than 2500, and some over 5k.

My experience has been that attorney are allowed in small claims court, but they are rarely trial lawyers. As such they are about as clueless as you are in how to argue. In my case, the defendant's attorney actually made a point in my favor.

You probably want this to go to arbitration. The legal team will understand they have no legal ground to stand on, and pay at least some portion of the money. And you will actually get paid. You will not be dealing with some CSR that has no ability to make any kind of decision.

And that is the trouble with most small claims courts. It is very hard to actually get paid. In some jurisdictions judgements can be ignored with no consequences.

If I was you I would gather your evidence, and sue for 800 plus interest, plus any court fees, plus any fees associated with the money being drawn from your account. You need to change banks and cell phone providers. Both are seemingly okay with stealing from you.

Settle for anything over $700 if you get the check today.

This is no longer between you and TMobile, but between you and the fraudster.

To find out their identity, the correct approach is to press charges for wire fraud (which, if they reside in a different state, become federal charges), then use the defendant's contact information for a small claims suit.

The same thing happened to me, only with Verizon. Someone opened an account and got a new phone and service, and put my bank routing number and account number as the autopay number. Verizon doesn't check anything, not even to see if the name on the account matched the name on the autopay (which it didn't).

The regulations put all the responsibility for this on your bank. The bank is responsible for conducting and investigation and refunding or not refunding the charges. I had a mixture of charges that were less than 60 days, which I got back from the bank, and more than 60 days, which I didn't.

I ended up filing a small claims case against Verizon and they settled with me for the charges the bank did not give back to me. However, they insisted that they have no responsibility to check to make sure that someone has permission to use the account number they set up as autopay. I completely disagree, and there are examples of other organizations that have a policy around this and will verify ownership of any direct debits to an account. But it's not really clear what the law says about it.

This is a huge loophole for would-be criminals, because all they need is your routing and account number (available on any check) to steal from your with direct debits to your checking account. Verizon had absolutely no interest in trying to identify who did this or pursuing them in any way. It probably falls to the bank to pursue them since they have to refund the money. But I filed a police report and nothing happened. Verizon wouldn't even tell me the name on the account, only that it wasn't mine. They cited customer privacy. They said they might reveal it to law enforcement, but nothing happened.

I'm not sure how the people got my account number. But there are so many breaches these days, you might be able get a payout in a class action suit related to a data breach. I'm getting $1,500 from one of them.

Act now, and act fast to prevent further damages.

You are doing things wrong, and Tmobile is most likely not allowed to let you know the identity of the person who initiated the transaction, nor are they responsible for reverting criminal transactions.(As commented by user littleadv)

A) Ask Tmobile how you can identify yourself as the owner of your bank account. Then you can ask further questions.

Ask whether your account number was provided directly to Tmobile's system by one of their customer or the transaction was carried out by a payment bank. "We didn't initiate the transaction - one of our customers did." indicates the latter.

B) Ask Tmobile or the payment bank how identification for the transactions was done. At least you have to provide the name of the owner of the account along with the account number. Further restrictions may apply to your account.

Ask if your account is affiliated to any active customer relationships.

Pay attention to small details like if the name for identification was spelled e.g. "Stu Reynolds" or "Stuart Reynolds". This could be an important clue to how your identity was stolen.

C) Take that information to your bank along with your considerations of

• How can anybody know your account and how to identify as you?
• Did you tell your account number to anybody?
• Did somebody break into your mail account, PC, phone or even your house?

Giving away your account number and data sufficient for identification is like giving away your credit card and your PIN. Your comments reveals you do not realize that, otherwise you would not ask Tmobile to have your money back.

Your bank will advice you how to protect your account in the future - e.g. by a new account number. Your bank can tell you what level of identification ACH transactions need for your account.

Observe, that a stolen account number can turn out to be a very small problem (ACH has a transaction limit) compared to what else is stolen.

D) Read carefully the conditions for your bank account: Is your bank (and not the destination account) responsible for any abusive transactions? (This is standard in many countries/banks) Then you cannot ask Tmobile nor the payment bank to have your money back, especially not if proper identification was used for the transactions. Only in case it is clear identification did not comply to the rules, they might be responsible for the transactions.

Consider that if the person who initiated the payment bought your data on the dark net, then he did not use a valid name/address for his customer relationship at Tmobile. If your account is affiliated to an active customer at Tmobile, then the police/FBI can use traffic data to track the sinner to his home. Do not ask Tmobile to do this job.

Anyway, you should hand over the case to police.