Consumer complaint received 2021-06-24
Company: FIRST MERCHANTS CORPORATION
State: IN
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem using a debit or ATM card

Complaint:
My family has lost a total of {$1800.00} to unauthorized charges on my debit card to purchases from XXXX XXXX. Someone got a hold of my debit card information and used it. I filed a dispute with the bank which was denied because 4 of the charges are past 60 days ( none of them ever informed of that information ) old ( That I never would of caught and thought they were my families own charges ). My concern and frustration comes to the bank. I called the customer service area on Friday XXXX XXXX and had my debit card shut off. I talked to them about the charges and was advised to wait until all charges had cleared. At that point I had {$170.00} " pending ''. I went into the local branch in my town and got a new debit card on that same day XX/XX/2021. I took my print out of the charges as well. The gentleman got me a new debit card and said I needed to wait until after the Holiday ( XXXX day weekend ) for my pending charges to clear which would probably be on XX/XX/2021 that way I only had to file 1 dispute and not 2. Again, nothing was ever said to me about not getting any money back if the first charges happened 60 days prior. I was advised that I would get my money back in 10 business days and it was an easy process. Yes, I do agree that SOME of this was my fault for not catching it sooner. But I also want to know why my account was never flagged as fraud or asked if these happen to be my charges on the dates that it hit crazy. So from XXXX I lost {$240.00} from not catching them " testing out my card '' they were very sporadic and I thought they were mine. On XX/XX/2021 I had 6 charges hit for a total of {$110.00}. That was never a red flag to my bank. If my bank would or flagged that for Fraud and checked with me I would of lost only the {$240.00} but not had {$1500.00} more taken from me. On XX/XX/2021 XXXX charges hit to my account, again not a red flag to the bank they let everyone of them go through and not question it. That was {$400.00}. When I checked my account on XX/XX/2021 to see if my husbands check was going to hit the account before the Holiday or after I noticed the amount in my account seemed off by ALOT of money. On XX/XX/2021 9 more charges hit my account for {$260.00}. So not only did two crazy days of charges make it through my bank to be paid and not questioned I lost a total of {$670.00} in 2 days! I was told by customer service and they gentleman who created my debit card that I had to let my pending charges go through. Which on XX/XX/2021 there were 5 pending charges for {$170.00}. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. That not only did I mess up because I am human and make mistakes and don't check my transactions daily ( I do from this point forward ). We have XXXX busy boys in travel baseball and my husband is a XXXX XXXX XXXX. So just making sure I had money in there was what I did. My bank, a bank that we are putting our trust into let money slip out of my account like it wasn't a bid deal and no fraud concern. I also called into customer service and asked them a few days later about Fraud and why it wasn't trigged to not go through or for the bank to check with us on these crazy charges. I have family and friends that work for this bank, and they have advised me that it definitely should of been a red flag with sirens going off. They had no good reason for it. I looked over the website for First Merchants and there is nothing listing for the 60 day time frame. I will be attaching all of my examples. Here is what the website says " A consumer claiming that funds were taken from an account by another person 's unauthorized transfer without prior consent A transaction was posted improperly due to a bank bookkeeping error, can have the error corrected by notifying the financial institution holding the account Once a consumer notifies the financial institution of a suspected unauthorized transaction, the financial institution has from 10 to 45 days to investigate the complaint and re-credit funds debited in error. The consumer 's account liability is limited by regulation to {$50.00} if the bank is notified of the error, but otherwise can be as high as {$500.00}. '' It also list they already have everyone included in Fraud alerts, so it's not something I had to sign up for. Thankfully we had money in our savings account, but it is my husbands inheritance money from his grandpa passing. On XX/XX/2021 I was advised of the denial when I called to follow up because that was day XXXX of my dispute. The customer service person couldn't explain it to me so that I could understand what was going on. I went into the XXXX branch which is in my town. I spoke with a manager and they had to call someone on the dispute because even the letter that was being sent to me was confusing to her. She told me to call XXXX XXXX to get my money. I emailed that same manger the same day asking how the fraud protection worked and why it didn't work for my checking account, I never received a response back and we have threatened to pull all of our accounts which includes us, our kids, my husbands XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX account. I'm honestly guessing she didn't have a reason for me on why it worked, but from a business and a manager I would of thought they could of responded back with maybe someone higher up to talk to. But I got nothing. I also emailed a dispute email address on XX/XX/2021 and got no response. I did email I have spent hours on the phone with XXXX. Because these purchases were NOT purchased from our XXXX accounts they can't refund me the money and keep telling me I have to to go through the bank because it's Fraud. I don't understand why XXXX XXXX can't look up my old debit card # to see who was making these purchases. We have play station accounts and our checking account is tied to the XXXX XXXX so when we actually purchase from XXXX XXXX it shows up as a XXXX XXXX transaction. I don't want the lack of fraud protection to hurt anyone else financially. I feel like the bank is just as responsible as I am at this point for not catching it on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. At this point I would be happy to just get my money back from XX/XX/2021 forward which is {$1500.00}. The bank should of stopped it from XX/XX/2021 forward. I feel like they should of also stopped the pending charges from going through since they had not cleared yet instead of advising me to wait. I called in on XX/XX/2021 to file my dispute and had to call back on XX/XX/2021 because I had not received the email that I needed to respond to about my dispute. Honesty is what we are all taught and told to do and I was honest with the bank about me not catching it soon enough and included 4 dates that would cause me to not got anything back. It's almost like it's a punishment for being honest. I had someone in the XXXX office open a complaint on XX/XX/2021. 

I have 3 attachments 1. The XXXX XXXX XXXX ( showing the last 4 of my old debit card ) 2. Information from the banks website 3. Example showing that our XXXX account is tied to our checking account 4. XXXX XXXX Account search history for XX/XX/2021 XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation