Consumer complaint received 2020-05-25
Company: PEOPLE'S UNITED BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: WA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: CD (Certificate of Deposit)
Issue: Closing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not received from closed account

Complaint:
Please help me. Nineteen months ago I invested in a 19 month XXXX APY CD from the United bank, and now they appear reluctant to return the funds to me although I have sent them two requests in writing and spoken with two customer service representatives on the phone.

I applied online. They sent me a confirmation email confirming my application number and I also made a screen copy for my records ( atch 1 ). On XX/XX/XXXX they ACH 'd {$5000.00} from my account at XXXX  XXXX ( atch 2-my bank statement ). Subsequently, I established online banking and using my newly created username and password, I went online to confirm that they had created an account and they had. I wrote down the maturity date ( XX/XX/XXXX ) so that it did not get forgotten ; and that is the last communication I have had with them until the present.. 
I expected to get a reminder letter a month prior to the maturity date but I was not alarmed when I didn't. I simply thought they might have forgotten. Sometime in early XXXX I tried to go to my my online banking page but I discovered that the bank had been sold or otherwise merged and was now called Peoples United Bank and my online banking credentials no longer worked. 
I was not alarmed by this, but on the morning of the XXXX XXXX between XXXX and XXXX XXXX  pacific time I called the bank and spoke with a customer service person named XXXX ( they say they record all calls for training purposes so presumably they can independently verify what was said ). 
I expected this to be a three minute phone call. I would identify myself and say I had a 19 month CD that was maturing soon and upon maturity I would like the funds returned to me. I expected to be asked my social security number and my license number and some other qualifying questions and then I imagined that they would agree to send a check or ACH the funds back to the bank of origin. 
But that is not how it went. Yes, I told XXXX why I was calling and yes she asked me a series of qualifying questions, but then she asked for my account number. I explained that I didn't know what it was because I had been locked out of online banking and I had never received a reminder letter telling me that the XXXX was maturing as it would have included the account number. Now she said she was going to transfer my call to someone else and I asked for the number in case we were cut off or no one ever answered, which as it turns out is exactly what happened. 
I was somewhat disturbed that the emphasis seemed to have shifted to getting me onto online banking. Surely XXXX was looking at a screen that included my one and only account at that bank, and once my funds had been returned to me, I wasn't going to need any online banking access. So I wrote a letter to customer service at the address given for general correspondence in which I asked the upon maturity the funds be returned to me ( atch 3-my first letter ). 
The very next day I called the number that XXXX had given me ( which is the number given on the website for online banking problems ). This time I spoke to XXXX ( XXXX XXXX pacific time ). I explained that I was trying to close out my account and because I couldn't get on online banking, I didn't know the new account number ( apparently there was something on the website that suggested that when the bank had merged the account numbers had also changed ). XXXX said that they had my address wrong in their file and had had bank communications returned. ( Apparently they had notified customers of the name change and had sent instructions on how to reestablish online bankingnone of which I ever received. I gave XXXX my correct address. and he said he would send me something that presumably would reestablish my online banking. I found it interesting that XXXX knew without me telling him that my CD was for {$5000.00} and probably his screen included its new account number. 
Just as a side observation, when a bank sends out communications that are later returned as deliverable, don't they have some degree of responsibility for trying to get the correct address. Did they lose my phone number and email at the same time? They could have called my bank ( the one the money came from ) and asked my bank to call me and tell me that Unided Bank needed me to verify my address. 
I expected that XXXX might be sending all the communications that had been returned, but this is what I got ( atch 4 ), a letter signed by a vice-president along with a blank change of address form. Never mind that my address has not changed. It arrived on the XXXX and filled it out and returned it on the XXXX along with a second letter from me asking that my funds be returned ( atch 5 ) It is now the XXXX of XXXX. The maturity date in now 9 days in the past. I have had no phone calls, no emails and no other written communications and my XXXX  XXXX account has not received any funds from Peoples bank. Please help me. 
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Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation