Consumer complaint received 2023-06-05
Company: BMO HARRIS BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MN
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem accessing account

Complaint:
This concerns a checking account, savings account, and CD with Bank of the West and belonging to a nonprofit unincorporated association. I have served as the XXXX of the nonprofit and as a signer on these accounts since XX/XX/XXXX. Bank of the West is now a part of BMO Harris. 

In XXXX or XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted my small town Bank of the West branch about my concern that there might be an attempt to commandeer these bank accounts by a statewide organization. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted my branch about closing out the CD which would mature on XX/XX/XXXX. Thus, my branch should have suspected that I was still XXXX I was told I needed to wait until XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, unspecified individuals using purported meeting minutes had my bank branch replace the existing signers with themselves, without warning, inquiry, or notice to, and without authorization from, the existing signers. 

I discovered what had happened in the morning of XX/XX/XXXX, and the accounts were frozen. But the bank has not reversed the changes made on XX/XX/XXXX, and I have not had a comfort level with how it has all been handled. I have not been told that I will even be informed when the dispute is resolved. 

I have provided various documents to the branch, but my understanding is that before the changes will be reversed, I have to file suit against those who requested the bank to make the changes. This seems backward. It seems like those who wanted the accounts changed should be the ones who file suit. 

My understanding is that the accounts will remain frozen until I surrender the books to the other parties, whomever they be, and the other parties can prove they've been surrendered. But the bank refuses to identify who is/are now listed as signer ( s ) on the accounts, and refuses to provide details about the purported minutes that were used to hijack the accounts. 

I filed a complaint with the OCC on XX/XX/XXXX in order to inquire as to what safeguards might exist to prevent accounts from being hijacked in this manner. 

When I've asked a difference branch of the same bank, the bank 's national customer service or fraud line, and my own personal bank this question, I have been told multiple times that a safeguard is to involve an existing signer when making changes to an account. Yet when discussing this particular incident with the bank branches and the regional customer service officer, I get a different answer, that involving an existing signer isn't necessary and purported minutes alone are sufficient. To me, it's as if someone is trying to evade liability for what happened by answering the question differently. 

The first response I received from the OCC didn't make sense, because the letter said the OCC doesn't process complaints that aren't submitted by the account owner. This didn't make sense because by phone the OCC told me to submit my question using their complaint form, and then when I did that, the OCC 's letter told me I couldn't do that. It's as if there is no way to complain to the OCC about an unauthorized change of signers on an account. Further, I was using the complaint form to ask my question about what safeguards are in place, as the OCC had instructed me to do, and thus technically wasn't filing a complaint, as far as I can tell. 

Eventually I got a call back from the OCC which sounded as if I was talking to the bank : No, the bank could not notify me when the dispute was resolved. I could get a copy of the purported minutes during discovery in a lawsuit, but not from the bank before then. But the oddest part of the conversation was this : I have repeatedly raised my concern that this reveals a weakness in our banking system, that anyone, perhaps someone involved in organized crime, could walk in off the street, produce purported minutes, and hijack bank accounts. In response to this, both the branch manager of a different branch of the same bank, and the OCC person who called me back after I asked questions about the letter I had received from the OCC, discounted my concern as being just a hypothetical. 

Another troubling issue was that the bank 's national customer service or fraud lines ( both BMO Harris and Bank of the West ) told me there was a form I needed to fill out and sign at a branch. The branch at which the incident occurred knew nothing about such a form, even four days after I had originally followed up on what I was told by phone. After being again told an additional three days later by a national customer service person that I needed to go into a branch, and fill out and sign a form, I drove 40 miles one way to a different branch to do that. At that branch I was told there is no form. And when the regional customer service officer later called me, she said there was no form as well.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation