Consumer complaint received 2019-12-10
Company: FULTON FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MD
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Personal line of credit
Issue: Charged fees or interest you didn't expect

Complaint:
This complaint is a compilation of multiple complaints, but I can submit each complaint separately if that would work better. The main complaint is an internal fraud problem. I reported it, in writing, to a bank employee, but neither the employee nor anyone else with the bank have responded or corrected their wrongdoing. 
| I have both a joint checking and overdraft account I opened with The XXXX XXXX  decades ago. The XXXX XXXX  is now  Fulton Bank, which is owned by Fulton Financial, N.A.. Fulton took over the bank some time ago, but the bank continued to do business as The XXXX XXXX until XX/XX/2019. At that point, the bank signage and operations switched to using the Fulton name. That is when the problem began. 
| Several events occurred to which I had not consented. First, I had not consented to a {$12.00} fee each time I used overdraft. I notified the bank of this, and they reversed four of these fees from XX/XX/2019. My contact at Fulton for this problem was XXXX XXXX, Senior Customer Service Representative at the branch located at XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, Maryland XXXX. 
| After that, I have intended to transition away from using Fulton Bank and close my account, but I need to make other arrangements for the balance on the overdraft account, so I have not yet closed the account. 
| Next, I had a problem with internal fraud from a Fulton Bank  employee. This is what happened : | I needed to make a XX/XX/2019 payment on the balance due on my overdraft account. On XX/XX/2019, I used the drive through teller to put cash into my checking account for the purpose of making a payment on my overdraft account. Using a computer at home, I checked my account on the Fulton website to see if I had any scheduled transactions. I did not. So that meant I needed to manually make the payment. Therefore, on XX/XX/XXXX, I used my computer to transfer {$120.00} from checking to overdraft. This left me with approximately {$28.00} in my checking account. When I transferred the {$120.00} from checking to overdraft, the transfer application boxes on the website showed the transfer date as XX/XX/XXXX, and I chose the option Make a regular payment. The other option is Pay to principal, which I did not choose because I was making a payment. There is also a faded, unavailable option, Make a special payment, and my credentials currently do not give me the access to click on that option. So, in summary, I had no transfer of funds automatically scheduled, so on XX/XX/XXXX I transferred {$120.00} from checking to overdraft to make my XXXX payment. Yes, I am describing the very normal act of making a payment, which is a huge waste of time for me to describe, but because of a bank employees fraud, its important that I document the fact that I made a regular payment on XX/XX/XXXX, not an extra payment on XX/XX/XXXX as the bank records incorrectly indicate. 
| What happened next involves employee fraud : | On XX/XX/XXXX, SIX DAYS later, without consulting me and without my consent, a Fulton Bank employee transferred {$100.00} from my overdraft to my checking account and charged me a {$12.00} fee. This was unnecessary : I had roughly {$28.00} in checking and I did not have any items coming into checking that needed this transfer of funds. Next, a Fulton employee transferred {$120.00} from my checking back into my overdraft account. I had no payment due and no transfer of funds scheduled. No one consulted me prior to this transaction, and it was made without my consent. No employee may move my money without my authorization. Thats theft. 
| The fraud part, which is also theft : a Fulton employee then fraudulently altered transaction dates to make the XX/XX/XXXX transactions appear to have occurred prior to my manual transfer of funds on XX/XX/XXXX. The XX/XX/XXXX unauthorized transfer of {$120.00} was fraudulently backdated to XX/XX/XXXX, and Fulton re-dated my XX/XX/XXXX transfer of {$120.00} to appear to have been made on XX/XX/XXXX. 
| The website does not allow account holders to transfer money from checking to overdraft if funds are not available in checking, so whoever fraudulently altered the dates apparently did not take this fact into account. The transaction log, however reflects this impossible transfer only because an employee fraudulently changed the transaction dates to reorder the transactions and trigger a {$12.00} fee. I have heard of banks rearranging the order of transactions occurring over the course of a single day ostensibly for the point of paying larger items first, but changing the order of transactions occurring nearly a week apart for the point of triggering a {$12.00} fee is outright theft and fraud. 
| Via email, I notified Ms. XXXX of this situation and asked her to return the money to the way it was ( I had {$28.00} in checking ) and notify Fultons fraud department. She never responded. I know I used her correct email address because I responded to an email she had sent to me in early XXXX. 
| The entire XX/XX/XXXX money transfer resulted in the bank gaining a {$12.00} fee and then later gaining additional fees because their XX/XX/XXXX money shuffle resulted in the unauthorized move of {$28.00} out of checking and into overdraft. Fulton later charged a {$12.00} to move a portion of it back to checking to cover an {$11.00} transition I had set up on my XXXX  account : On XX/XX/XXXX when XXXX requested {$11.00} from my The XXXX XXXX Visa, which debits from my checking account, the money was not there in checking, and so the money came from my overdraft account instead, which resulted in Fulton charging another {$12.00} fee. In my account on the XXXX website, I had attempted to change the credit card to one associated with a different bank, but I initiated the change too close to the actual transaction, so I was not able to actually make the change in credit card until after the transaction had occurred. Fulton Bank shows a XX/XX/XXXX transaction date for this XXXX transaction, but XX/XX/XXXX is the correct date. 
| I was still surprised the XXXX {$11.00} transaction went through, though, because Fulton Bank had sent me a new Fulton Visa debit card and notified me that my current card, a The  XXXX XXXX  Visa debit card, would not work after a specific date, which I recall to be XX/XX/XXXX, although I could be off by a few days. I knew there was no way I was going to enter into an agreement with Fulton Bank after seeing a bank employee commit fraud, and so I did not verify or authorize the new Fulton Visa XXXX card. XXXX used my old XXXX XXXX XXXX Visa debit card. When I realized I had waited too long to change cards in XXXX, I expected Fulton to reject the transaction, but it went through. Its noteworthy that Fulton allowed a transaction on a supposedly outdated, nonfunctioning card. In any case, if not for the employee theft and fraud on my account, I would have {$28.00} in my checking account to cover the transaction, and Fulton would not have needed to transfer the money from my overdraft account to cover it, triggering another {$12.00} fee. I would have paid XXXX from one account or another, so Im not concerned about the {$11.00} XXXX charge, only the {$12.00} Fulton fee, which I had not authorized and wouldnt have needed if Fulton had responded to my prior fraud complaint and corrected the problem. 
| For the point of temporarily mitigating the situation, I then transferred {$110.00} from my overdraft account to my checking account, and I did this to cover any unexpected small withdrawals on my account until I can settle this matter. This last transaction resulted in another {$12.00} fee, which this time I anticipated Fulton would change, although I still have not entered into any agreement with Fulton Bank which would give the bank authorization to charge this fee. I would also like to note that as of this moment, XX/XX/2019 at XXXX XXXX., the latest {$12.00} fee does not show up on my accounts online history. I know about only because Im signed up for email notifications. Its unacceptable for Fulton to have only an inaccurate account history available for customers viewing their accounts online. 
| I am making this complaint available for public view on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus ( CFPB ) website, and per the CFPBs instructions I am obscuring account numbers. 
| The refusal of the bank to respond to my fraud complaint is alarming. Fulton Bank is preying on account holders with very little money, and had I not been watching closely, I easily would have missed this employee theft and fraud.

| Once I experienced predatory behavior from Fulton Bank, I  began watching more closely and documenting more carefully. Attached please find the following documentation : | File Name : cb payment XXXX ... 
This is file resulting on clicking on print receipt on the Fulton Bank website on XX/XX/XXXX when I made a regular payment of {$120.00} from checking to overdraft. On a separate day I transferred {$1.00} and filmed the screen in case there is any dispute about the plain appearance of Fulton Bank receipts. As the document indicates, I clearly transferred {$120.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. 
| XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ... 
This image is a screenshot of my overdraft account taken on XX/XX/2019 at XXXX XXXX. shows Fulton Bank had falsified a transaction. See the line XX/XX/2019 Payment/Regular Payment - Effective Date {$120.00}. The wording Effective Date indicates the change was backdated but not actually made on the date stated. 
| File Name : XXXX ... 
This image shows an order of transactions thats not possible. The website does not allow customers to transfer money thats not in a customers account, but this image gives the impression that I transferred {$120.00} from checking to overdraft and did not have to do so, resulting in a balance of - {$92.00}. As I have already proven, I deposited money on the XXXX and then make a regular payment of {$120.00}, also on the XXXX. Even if Fulton {$120.00} didnt post until Monday, XX/XX/XXXX, the {$120.00} transaction still occurred many days prior to Fultons fraudulent {$120.00} backdated transaction. 
| File Name : XXXX ... 
This image shows that when I dont have money in checking, the websites application to transfer money doesnt display it. Therefore, it would have been impossible for me to transfer {$120.00} from checking to overdraft on XX/XX/XXXX if I had already made a regular payment on XX/XX/XXXX, as Fulton bank claims. 
| File Name : XXXX ... 
This image was taken a few minutes after the above image. It shows accounts available to accept funds. I should have had {$28.00} in checking if not for the fraud. 
| File Name : XXXX XXXX 
This image, taken on XX/XX/XXXX, shows a date of XX/XX/XXXX, leading the customer to believe the transfer date will be XX/XX/XXXX if the customer transfers funds. I transferred {$1.00} from checking to overdraft to test the accuracy. The next few screenshots illustrate this process : | File Name : XXXX ... 
I had already transferred the rest of overdraft to checking, so this time the website application did not give me the option of transferring money from overdraft, only from checking. 
| File Name : XXXX ... 
In this image you can see the options I chose for this {$1.00} trial transfer of funds. Please note the date indicates the transfer is on XX/XX/XXXX. Under operations of XXXX  XXXX XXXX, transfers were always immediate, and here on Fultons screen there is no reason to anticipate anything different, otherwise the date on Fultons website application would have shown as something other than XX/XX/XXXX. 
| File Name : XXXX ... 
This is the next screen showing the successful transfer of {$1.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. 
| File Name : XXXX ... 
This image shows Fulton incorrectly dated my {$1.00} transfer, showing the transfer on XX/XX/XXXX instead of XX/XX/XXXX. Im showing this to make two points : first, when customers make a transfer, the web application should show the correct date of when the transfer will be effective. Fultons website is misleading customers by showing the incorrect date. By bumping transfers forward by a day, imagine how many {$12.00} fees Fulton will  charge customers! By making this effective XX/XX/XXXX instead of XX/XX/XXXX, Fulton can then reorder any debits that come from a customers account on XX/XX/XXXX to appear to occur prior to the transfer of funds, and then Fulton would charge {$12.00} for each debit even though the customer had actually transferred funds to cover the debits on the day before the debits occurred. So, this is fraud on Fultons part. The second reason Im using this image is to reinforce my documentation proving that the funds I transferred from checking to overdraft on XX/XX/XXXX were actually transferred on XX/XX/XXXX, not XX/XX/XXXX, and its nothing short of outright predatory fraud for a Fulton employee to go into my account a week later, on XX/XX/XXXX, move my money around without my authorization and falsely document that I make a regular payment of {$120.00} on XX/XX/XXXX and rename my actual XX/XX/XXXX payment to unscheduled payment. 
| File name : XXXX ... 
This file is an image of the automatic email notification Fulton sent on Thursday, XX/XX/2019. This is the fee Fulton then re-dated to appear to have been triggered Monday, XX/XX/XXXX. As documented, the fee occurred on XX/XX/XXXX, because that is when Fulton moved my money around, falsified dates, and triggered a fee. 
| File name : XXXX ... 
Before I made my {$120.00} payment on XX/XX/XXXX, I checked to be sure I had no payments automatically scheduled. I am new to Fultons operations, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't duplicating efforts. My actions showed diligence. The website application specifically stated I had no transfers scheduled, and that is the only reason I manually made my payment. The image in the file named above shows the same content as it did on XX/XX/XXXX, There are no scheduled transfers.

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 monetary relief