Consumer complaint received 2021-05-03
Company: FIFTH THIRD FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MI
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: You never received your bill or did not know a payment was due

Complaint:
The situation begins in XXXX of 2020 when my previous business credit card XXXX was fraudulently used. I contacted 5/3rd and that situation was resolved, the charges reversed, and the card canceled and replaced. 

When that card was replaced, the new one was never added to my online banking, and the old card was never removed from online banking. 

I was signed up for electronic billing only so I was neither receiving paper statements, nor electronic statements due to the banks error. 

Compounding the problem, I had an errant indicator that I owed no money in the old card still being present showing its {$0.00} balance. 

In the period where the credit card was out of commission as it was being replaced I switched my spending over to the debit card and never switched back. It seems I used the new credit card a few times but when I did so I expected to be later billed for that and the bill never came, so the bill was never paid. 

I continued regularly using the online banking, always seeing that my credit card balance was {$0.00} and so thought I had no CC bill to pay. It turns out that balance was for the previous credit card that was no longer in use. I thought that was for the current credit card, because it was there and nothing else was. Having only one credit card I do not call it card XXXX I call it, " the credit card '' On XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX I got a collection call from someone who I now understand to be a legitimate representative of the bank but did not at the time. My caller ID showed the name of Fifth Third Bank, but also showed the call as a moderate spam risk. As a business owner with a publicly available phone number I receive more scam calls than real ones by a factor of 10. I am well aware number spoofing is a thing. When someone called and said I owe {$800.00} some dollars I was skeptical because I was just in my online banking and there was no balance shown. 

I then called the local 5/3rd branch immediately after at XXXX. When I called I said " I received a collection call but my online banking shows a {$0.00} balance, can you confirm for me if I do owe money or if this is a scam call. '' I remember leaving this call a bit confused but at the end of the call I was told something other than yes you do owe money on a credit card. If I had been told that by someone I knew for sure to be from the bank I would have paid it then gladly as I always have. Like I did on XX/XX/XXXX when the situation was finally cleared up. I had the money then, what possible reason would I have for allowing the fees to accumulate? 

Perhaps the teller was likewise fooled by the red herring of the old credit card still being listed. Maybe they took my word for it what was on my online banking and never actually opened my accounts to look for themselves. I don't know what they thought, I can not demonstrate what they thought, but I can show that the call was a direct response to the collections call, and that the situation was not cleared up by the call to the branch. 

The only correct response was " Yes you do have a debt, I am sorry your CC was never connected to your online banking, I will correct that for you ''. And that did not happen. 

One line I do remember is nearly word for word is " If your online banking doesn't show any charges, it is probably a scam. '' So I was not strictly told, " you don't owe money, '' but I was never told on asking, " You do owe money " either. 

I feel this call to the branch was me doing my due diligence on this. At that point I should have gotten clarity on the situation from a 5/3rd employee. 

I continued to get collections calls. I told them I didn't believe them, that my local bank couldn't confirm what they were saying and that I would believe a representative from my local branch, apparently that was too much to ask though so I never got a call from the local branch explaining the situation. 

I feel this constitutes a third mistake. I had made it very clear to collections that I did not believe them and that I could not confirm what they were saying with anyone I trusted. I asked them to provide proof of debt, they took no further efforts to do so. Perhaps they believe that the statements I was supposed to be receiving were proof enough, except that I was not receiving any statements. 

On Friday the XXXX of XXXX I got the most recent collection call and again called the local branch to try and figure out what was going on. That call started out with a lot of confusion too, but eventually they were able to figure out and explain to me that I had a credit card that was not shown in online banking, and that the previous credit card was still showing on the account and confounding the situation. The teller was then able to connect the new card to my online banking, where I could then see my statements for the first time. 

When I was finally able to confirm that this debt was legitimate with someone I knew to be from the bank, something I tried to do months ago, I paid it the same day. Had I been able to have the phone call I had on the XXXX much earlier, we would not be in the situation with these late fees accumulating without statements. 

I tried to have that phone call earlier but was not given a clear, useful answer. 

I feel that without notification of these charges beyond collection calls that could have been coming from anybody, and with me asking if the collections calls were legitimate and not getting a clear answer, the charges should not be legitimate. 

Everything above was passed on to 5/3rd bank and they held that since there was no evidence of me calling the bank to clarify the charges could not be reversed. I provided my own call logs but they then said that because I did not have a recording of the call they could not confirm that I had asked about the debt. I hold that the proof of this is in the call to the branch being in response to and immediately after the first collections call.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation