Consumer complaint received 2024-01-18
Company: M&T BANK CORPORATION
State: VA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  I opened a checking account with M & T bank online. On XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX I funded the account with an external transfer of {$10000.00} from an XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX savings account owned by my wife XXXX XXXX. This was an error as I intended to transfer in monery from another XXXX XXXX Private Bank savings account jointly owned by me and my wife. After several days I found out I could not access to my bank account either on the app and online, so I reached out to customer service according to the phone number that popped out on the app. I was told my account access was blocked due to incoming money from an account not under my name and asked to visit a branch to resolve the issue. 

I visited the branch on XX/XX/XXXX and the branch banker called M & T Bank 's corporate. Afterwards I was advised by the banker to bring a bank statement of the account that the money was transferred from, which I provided. The banker advised that there would be a 7-day hold on the account which would end on XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX I was still not able to access my account and called M & T customer service again. I was advised someone from the Fraud department would call me within 24 hours, which never happended. I called customer service one more time on XX/XX/XXXX and was transferred to the Fraud department. The representative at the department advised that I should try to add myself as a joint owner of the savings account at XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX owned by my wife to resolve the issue. My wife and I contacted XXXX XXXX, which advised us they could not make such change to my wife 's Private Bank premium savings account. 

I visited M & T 's branch again on XX/XX/XXXX and inquired about the next steps to get my account block removed. The banker called M & T 's corporate and then told me he was asked to email to the corporate and wait for their responses. The banker emailed me on XX/XX/XXXX and advised that my wife needs to be added as a joint account owner to my checking account at M & T bank and then the issue would be resolved. 

My wife and I visited the branch and added her as a joint owner to the account on XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX We were advised by the banker the account restriction would soon be removed, if not the same day, maybe in one or two days. But, up until now the account was still blocked and we could not access to the money in the account. I called the branch again on XX/XX/XXXX while on business trip. The banker noted and later emailed me that he contacted the corporate and was still waiting for M & T 's " deposit investigation '' department to come back. To this day I still don't know what M & T is investigating, what information it needs me to provide to unclock the account, and why it promised a result for several times which never gets delivered. 

It is has been over 40 days nowsince my account was blocked. Throughout the whole period there has never been any proactive communication from M & T 's corporate -- no emails, no calls, no letters, despite stated so by phone representatives. I had to find out information bit by bit by myself. The branch bankers are friendly and trying to help but they seem powerless and ignored by their corporate counterparts, and often gave out wrong projections/committments to me. The phone representatives including staff in the corporate that I talked over the phone are not caring, indifferent and not customer friendly.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief