Consumer complaint received 2018-08-03
Company: U.S. BANCORP
State: NE
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
This narrative begins with the experiences of my husband using an account of which I am a joint owner. I am filing this complaint on behalf of both of us as account holders. 

My husband attempted to send {$2000.00} to his sister using the USBANK mobile banking app on XX/XX/18. He tried twice, and each time got a message that said, " unable to complete transaction at this time. '' He then decided to use a different app to send the {$2000.00}, and it went through shortly. 

The following day, XX/XX/2018, my husband received an email from USBANK notifying him that there was a pending transfer of {$2000.00} from his account, and to make sure that he had sufficient funds before it was processed on XX/XX/18. Upon receiving this email in the morning, my husband walked to the nearest branch ( XXXXXXXX XXXX  XXXX in XXXX, Nebraska ) during one of his breaks from his job. When he spoke with a banker, she was very dismissive and treated him as if he were the one who had made the mistake. After explaining and re-explaining what had happened, she assured him that the transaction would probably not go through. If it did, she said he was to go see her the following day. 

On the morning of XX/XX/18, the funds were placed on hold as a pending transfer. This caused my husband 's available balance to drop to about a negative {$990.00}. He went back to the nearest branch ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) around XXXX that day and asked to speak to the same banker he spoke with the day before. The teller told him that she would be unavailable until XXXX and said that he could either wait, or she could see if she could help. He then explained the whole story to her, and all she did was message the banker from the previous day. She then offered to have him speak to a different available banker. 

He then spoke to a second banker. This banker listened to his story, grabbed a business card, circled the national customer service hotline, and handed it to him. She said that because this was a problem with mobile banking there would be nothing that they could do. At this point, we begin to wonder why we were not told this in the first place. 

After several transfers and 20 minutes on the phone, my husband was told that one of three things could happen. The transaction might not be allowed to process as it would put him so far in the red, the transaction would process ( in which point we would need to get his sister to send the money back to us ), OR the money could go through without the sister receiving it, in which case we would need to file a dispute. A dispute could take 10-15 business days to process. 

My husband explained the events to me on the afternoon of XX/XX/18 and expressed his concern that he was not being taken seriously. The dismissiveness and lack of help that he experienced at the local branch had an air of poor customer service at best, and racial discrimination at worst. The employees acted as if they did not believe him, and that the matter was not at all urgent and deserving of a prompt solution. As for the customer service hotline, the ambiguity of what would happen as a result of the bank 's error was unacceptable. 

At this point, I called the customer service hotline, still on the afternoon of XX/XX/18. I spoke with a representative who was very compassionate, understanding, and willing to help. She helped me to file a complaint with the manager of the local branch, and then proceeded to navigate the hotline on my behalf and speak to someone with mobile banking. She called back and explained to me that they told her the same thing that they had told me, but that the employee she spoke to was relatively sure that the transaction would be stopped because of insufficient funds. If it did go through ( which again, was supposed to be highly unlikely ) then we would have my sister-in-law send us the money back, and USBANK would remove any overdraft fees. 

Now, on the morning of XX/XX/18, the transaction has officially gone through on our end ( along with other normal pending charges ) leaving us with a balance of about negative {$1100.00} in this account. Unfortunately, the USBANK online system is currently unavailable, so I am unable to access the exact dollar amount at this moment. My sister-in-law has not received the {$2000.00}, nor does she have it listed as pending anywhere in her account. When looking through recent transfers and/or payments on his mobile app, no record of any such transfer of {$2000.00} appears as pending or recent. 

In summary, we attempted to transfer money using the USBANK mobile app, and received a message that said it was unable to process. The transfer then went through the following day, even though it said that it was unable to process. By this time, we no longer had the funds in our account because we had sent the money using a different method. When my husband attempted to get help from the nearest branch, he was treated like a second-class citizen and his concerns were quickly dismissed. The customer service hotline was unable to help other than reassuring us that we would most likely not have to worry about the transaction going through. Now, we are missing {$2000.00}, being charged overdraft fees, and within a few days will be unable to cover living expenses. This is problematic in that a dispute ( which was what we were told we would need to file ) can take up to 15 business days. A national bank with an annual net income of {$6.00} XXXX made a mistake that is causing us financial hardship, and is unwilling to correct it in a timely manner though it could easily do so. I also am under the impression that nothing will be done to compensate us for the unnecessary stress, time and money lost, and inconvenience that was caused by a bank error. This is unacceptable.

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 monetary relief