Consumer complaint received 2022-11-23
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: TX
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem making or receiving payments

Complaint:
I started to have problems with Ally Bank on XX/XX/XXXX of this year. I maintain through them a checking account with a never low or negative balance, which at the time was right around {$25000.00}. 
Initially, it was explained to me that suspicious charges had resulted in my debit card being put on hold. Curious to what those might be, I checked the mobile banking app to see that there had been no suspicious charges. I called Ally to tell them so. 
They indicated that there was in fact some kind of problem in connection with transactions that, as I made clear to them, were not visible in the banking app. To my knowledge, they are still not. 
However, across multiple customer service representatives and multiple hours of wait holding, no Ally employee was willing to present the relevant information in writing to me so that I could interpret the transaction data and confirm those charges. Much less, they were not willing to share the amount the invisible suspect transaction would have been for. 
As such, I was unable to confirm those transactions that I had no material reference for, and my checking account was placed under further restrictions. 
In the days that followed, I attempted to resolve my issues with Ally via telephone repeatedly. In this phase of attempting to resolve this lack of service, Ally contended that the issue at hand was a matter of verifying my identity as the person I claimed to be on the phone, in spite of the fact that I had passed through Allys ID verification scheme with each customer service rep with no real complications. Indeed, I received an email yesterday, XX/XX/XXXX explicitly communicating that this was the case. It was not. 
The next day, I was able to reach another customer service representative who was able to verify my identity appropriately, and left her conversation with me saying that I had a ) been verified as myself in their system, b ) would be sent a new debit card, and c ) would now be able to again access my checking account online. I was led to believe this was a final resolution to my non-problem. It was not. 
Today, through another bank ( and I should not NOT from Ally ) I was notified that a {$6000.00} dollar transfer from the Ally product in question had been out on hold. 
I then called Ally to inquire about the held transfer issue. The customer service representative passed me fairly quickly this time to Ally Fraud Prevention, who indicated that my account liquidity problems had been the result of regular, predictable, transparent, legitimate and paid use of a Virtual Private Network ( XXXX ) that I am entitled as a consumer to use. 
At no point in the hours of communication with Ally Ive been had over the last weeks had any clear message about this simple misunderstanding been brought to my attention. Only after the excessive sort of inquiry required when interacting with a bank that apparently does not require those employees who deal with fraud concerns to communicate with those others who render decisions on behalf of their customer base had been expended was this simple piece of information allowed to me. 
Now, Ally has communicated to me explicitly that my only recourse as their customer to access these funds that I did really ever deny myself through my decisions is to report additional identity verification information to its Fraud Prevention Division and wait an additional 3 business days beyond that for further instructions so that I can see liquidity again. 
Since XX/XX/XXXX, Ally Banks treatment of my reasonably understood consumer concerns has shown its internal communications to lack integrity and its customer-facing policies to be opaque such that they are abusive.

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