Consumer complaint received 2023-10-03
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: KY
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
I had 4 transactions ( {$200.00}, {$200.00}, {$150.00}, {$49.00} ) fraudulently taken out of my personal checking account on XX/XX/2023. These total {$590.00} taken from a vendor by the name of XXXX XXXX XXXX . 

I initially contacted XXXX XXXX and was told that they do not handle these types of disputes and that I would need to contact the fraud department at my bank and they would be the ones to initiate an investigation. That is exactly what I did. I contacted the Truist fraud department on XX/XX/2023 and initiated an investigation which was identified as Claim Number XXXX. 

After several days went by and I did not receive an update from Truist, I contacted the fraud department for information on XX/XX/2023 at XXXX from my cellphone. I was initially told by the representative that the case was denied. I asked for the denial reason and she kept telling me to go to my local branch and have them find the items in question and attach them to the claim and submit it for review. I was confused because that is exactly what was supposed to have been done when I initially opened the fraud dispute so I kept specifically asking her to tell me the denial reason. She kept saying " it tried and tried and tried then denied '' which I did not understand at all and I requested to speak to a Supervisor.

The Supervisor came to the phone, reviewed the notes and informed me that this fraud claim was denied because I previously once before reported fraud from the same merchant ( XXXX XXXX ). I did have fraud prior to this once before from a XXXX XXXX XXXX which was the same vendor, different name. It took me close to 3 months to get Truist to take care of those fraudulent charges by making over 50 phone calls totaling almost 20 hours of my time and getting their social media team involved to finalize it. Now here I am again a few months later, dealing with the same issue of jumping through hoops to get help from my bank when I have been frauded out of money. 

This Supervisor went on to explain that the bank has to make money and the reason this is denied is because XXXX XXXX is a merchant that thinks they do no wrong and do everything by the book, therefore the bank can not usually recoup their money from them. I questioned why that was my problem and not the banks problem and that it sounds like they are more interested in their own money vs their consumers money. The Supervisor proceeded to put me on trial for being frauded out of my own money. He questioned why I did not immediately report the fraud. When I explained that I did not check my account daily to notice this was taken then he responded with telling me how if it was his account he would have immediately noticed. He then questioned why I did not notice the fraud and report it when I made a XXXX payment one day from the account. He then asked me what proof I could submit that would support him requesting for a new case to be opened. I asked what proof I could possibly submit to show that my account was frauded for 4 charges totaling {$590.00} and he sent this back to the investigator asking what proof would be sufficient that could support reopening this case. It was so ridiculous that I never even followed up to find out the answer. 

I received a letter from Truist in the mail dated XX/XX/2023 that reads the following : " Based on a review of our records and the information gathered during the course of our investigation, we have determined with respect to the above-referenced amount that there is a pattern of similar transactions which were not previously disputed, which you benefited from. '' What?!?!?!?!?! 

So I wrote a horrible review on the Truist XXXX page and was contacted by them on XXXX XXXX to look into the issue. I was thrilled and provided all of the information that I have provided here, including dates and times of calls made so that they could listen to the recorded calls that were absolutely terrible. I reached out to them on XX/XX/2023 and received a call today on XX/XX/2023. I was told that there was nothing further they could do to assist me because I had previous fraud with XXXX XXXX on a different debit card and now that I have experienced it again with the same merchant on a different debit card they will not help me. She offered to transfer me to the fraud department again and when I expressed that they are of absolutely no help she stated " oh I know '' and apologized there was nothing she could do and disconnected the call.

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 explanation