Consumer complaint received 2023-07-08
Company: HUNTINGTON NATIONAL BANK, THE
State: OH
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
The issue began on the afternoon of XX/XX/XXXX when I attempted to make a small purchase ( less than {$20.00} ) and my card was declined. ( I checked my account prior to leaving my house, so I knew that I had at least {$300.00} in available funds as of that morning ). I immediately called Huntington bank to find out what the issue was, and after speaking to customer service, was told by the person I was speaking to, that my card was declined due to having a XXXX balance. After some back-and-forth banter and no resolution, I was transferred to a " supervisor '' who was able to look further into my account details after placing me on hold for nearly 10 minutes. Once the supervisor returned to the call, I was then told that my account was placed on hold ( for an unknown reason that was not noted in my account ). The supervisor also verified that there was in fact, an available balance in my account that matched the balance which I had noted that morning when I checked. After a few more minutes of verifying things, the supervisor released the hold on my account and I ended the call. Following my initial phone call, there had been no issues with my account for a period of nearly XXXX weeks. It wasn't until XX/XX/XXXX when my card was declined again while attempting to get gas. I immediately checked my account and noted that the balance was more than sufficient to cover the cost, so again, I called customer service. After questioning the representative, I was shocked as I was told that my account was being closed. When I questioned why, the representative informed me that " somebody '' called in XXXX weeks prior to this and requested to have the account closed. When I asked who it was that called and requested the closure, I was told that the representative was not allowed to give me that information. Again, I requested to speak with a supervisor. Once I explained the issue and questioned the supervisor, I was then told that it was ME who called and requested the account to be closed AND furthermore, was told that I even requested to remove my name from my account prior to closing it. ( This was absolutely not true ). I told the supervisor that it was NOT me who called to remove myself from my account, nor did I call to request to close my account. The supervisor placed me on hold for another XXXX minutes and then proceeded to tell me that he just " spoke to his boss '' and was told that they're is nothing they could do at this time, and my best option would be to visit my local Huntington branch and speak to someone there about the issue and that they would be able to offer better assistance. I drove immediately to my local branch and after sitting down with one of the bankers there and explaining the situation, the banker tools me that the only verification information that they require to access personal accounts is the customers name, phone number and mailing address. ( Which is RIDICULOUS! Anybody can get access to that information with a simple internet search these days. There is no security behind that at all. ) So even when I questioned why they didn't properly verify the person who called in and requested my account closure, the banker could not give an answer. Nonetheless, the banker called the customer service line to gather more information, but was told by customer service that they could not give him any information and that I would need to call and speak to them myself ( which I explained that I had just got off the phone with customer service who told me that I would have to visit my local branch ). This went back-and-forth for several more hours, between calling my local branch and calling customer service with still no resolution. I called the customer service line again the following day, explained the situation once again and also questioned the representative about what would happen to the current funds in my account, along with mine and my wife 's paychecks that were due to be deposited into the account the following week. At this point, the representative checks further into my account and tells me that they didn't see any notes about my account being closed and that my account was only showing as " on hold ''.. The representative then continued to explain that my account was on hold due to " misuse of my debit card ''. So I could not use the account, but I could still check my account and once my paychecks were deposited, I could go to my local branch and request to withdraw those funds. On XX/XX/XXXX, I woke up to a notification that my account was negative {$140.00}. After viewing my account online, I noted that at some point overnight, Huntington processed a " reverse provisional credit '' from my account in the amount of {$140.00}. Once again I immediately called customer service. As the representative asked to verify some information, he asked for my debit card number, which to my surprise, the representative then tells me that the card number I gave him was not even the card number they had associated with my account!?.. He then proceeded to inform me that at some point several weeks prior to someone calling to close my account, someone had also called in and requested new debit cards for my account, which he even verified had been delivered. However, when he began to verify more of my information, it came to my attention that they didn't even have my correct information. My zip code was incorrect, my phone number was wrong by several digits and even the names on my account were misspelled..I we furious and asked for the number to Huntingtons corporate office, to which the representative refused to give me. Going as far as taking me that Huntington does not have a corporate office and all Huntington employees work out of the same building.. I know this was not true so after not getting any further assistance, I hung up and was able to locate Huntingtons corporate number while doing a XXXX search. So I called the corporate number. Once I was able to speak to an individual at corporate they were no help either. Only suggesting that I visit my local branch. Nonetheless, I called my local branch and have them all of the information that I had, up iron this point. After not showing much care at all, the only thing the representative informed me of, was that Huntington processed a reverse provisional credit from my account as a result of a dispute that was dated all the way back to XX/XX/XXXX. The person also said that they could see several other open disputes that occurred recently, which they would be reversing as well. Having not made ANY disputes on my account, I explained to the representative that I had no prior knowledge of these disputes and they were false. With that representative not being able to give me any further information, he informed me that I would need to call the fraud department to dispute the chargebacks and handle this situation further. After calling the fraud department, I was informed that the individual I needed to speak with, would not be back in the office until the following Monday, so I would need to call back then. After calling the fraud department on Monday XX/XX/XXXX, the supervisor I spoke with informed me that they " did not feel that I was a good fit to bank with Huntington ''. When I questioned what she meant, she continued to say that they had reports of 2-3 disputes per week being made in my account since XXXX of XXXX which was another reason that they feel that I had been mis-using my account. Again I explained that I had no prior knowledge of any disputes on my account and I was not the one making these disputes. Trying to explain to them that I had not even attempted to call Huntington for several months prior to all of this happening recently. The supervisor then explained that they were not going to close the account right away, that there was not a set closure date and they would allow enough time so that my direct deposits had plenty of time to post and I could withdraw them. She said that they would not officially close my account until I called them back at a later date. The amount would just remain " on hold '' until I called to officially close it. The last thing the supervisor said before we ended the call, was that because the account was on hold, no money could go in our come out of the account, ( with the exception of my upcoming direct deposits which they would allow ). On XX/XX/XXXX I received another notification that my account had gone even further negative. Upon checking my account, I noticed several more reverse provisional credits from my account, totaling several more XXXX dollars, so after I got home from work, I called Customer service again. Except this time, the representative I spoke with informed me that aside from being on hold, they showed no additional issues with my account. I was confused and exceptionally frustrated at this point, so I explained that I expected to be receiving a direct deposit from SSA between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, ( i was unsure of the exact deposit date due to the XXXX of XXXX holiday falling on that weekend ) but I wanted to verify that my account would remain open and that I would have access to those funds once they were deposited. The representative once again assured me that there were no issues, that my account would remain open and on hold, and once my direct deposit posted, I could visit my local branch to withdraw it. So after verifying everything, I ended the call. On XX/XX/XXXX I attempted to check my account again but still no activity or deposits, so I called social security to verify the status of my direct deposit and they informed me that it had been successfully deposited into my bank account on XX/XX/XXXX ( they went even further by giving me a tracking number for the transaction and told me that I could give that number to the bank, and the bank will be able to locate the deposit with that number. Later that day, I attempted to check my bank account online once more but this time, I received a notification that I could not login because there were no accounts associated with my name. So once again, I contacted my local XXXX branch. The banker informed me that as of XX/XX/XXXX my account had been officially closed and it was reporting a XXXX balance. I explained to the banker that I had just spoken with someone in the Social Security office and was told that my SSA payment was deposited on the XXXX. I have the banker the tracking number that SSA provided to me, but the banker still said that they showed no deposits from the SSA treasury. So When I questioned again what would happen with my direct deposit from SSA, the banker informed me that one out was deposited, it would get kicked back to SSA. I tried explaining once more that social security had already verified that the payment had been successfully deposited on the XXXX and that they saw no issues and had not received any returned payments for my account. At this point in time, I was being told by Huntington that there is nothing they could do, my account was closed and as of now, i am no longer a Huntington customer. I have also requested my account statements several times and still jabs not received them. It seems like they are just doing everything they can to cover up THEIR mistake and I am EXTREMELY upset about this entire ordeal! Over the past several weeks that I have dealt with this issue, I feel like I have been lied to, given excuses and had to deal with numerous customer service representatives who have NO idea what they are doing. My account was closed without my knowledge, Huntington issued debit cards to strangers after failing to properly verify whether or not they were even the true account holders, funds were removed from my account without my permission and now my {$840.00} SSA XXXX payment is lost in the system because of countless errors and misinformation on Huntington banks part. They are also reporting bogus information to the credit bureau for something that was THEIR FAULT, which is affecting my credit score. Huntington is the WORST bank I have EVER dealt with.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief