Consumer complaint received 2020-01-17
Company: BBVA FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: NY
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
I opened an account with Simple Bank on XX/XX/2019 before the holidays. I was seeking a bank that would make it easier for me to utilize so I could use tap to pay features on my phone. According to the Simple Website, one business day check clearing is a large incentive to their accounts. Upon opening the account they require a 9 business day hold on checks of any amount with XXXX availability. Never mind they were advertising on television around the holidays for their accounts to make holiday shopping easier, even though to use it it would be well beyond the holidays based on their rules. 
So I waited for the 30 days to pass when I found out they don't make an exception to that check deposit rule. 
I went to deposit a check from XXXX, a well known brokerage firm. The funds are immediately available at any other banking institution I have ever used when depositing checks from places such as XXXX, especially when the amount is under XXXX dollars. Seeing as it was now after the holidays I figured I'd be fine with this. I deposited the check using my phone and was later messaged that there would be a 5 business day hold on this check. They made XXXX dollars available to me. It took them about two or three days to even review the check in the first place. I contacted them because this was very odd since the funds were coming from a place like XXXX and they are such a well known reputable nationwide company. After contacting them I recieved a notice that there would be a 5 business day hold on my check ... This made absolutely no sense whatsoever. For a check under XXXX dollars to be held this long goes completely against their advertising which informs people that they can avoid lengthy check holds by switching to Simple. They claim in their message the team only places holds when necessary. If you contact them to understand what " necessary '' qualifies as, you get no responses except necessary means necessary. They tell you nothing about the check you're referencing, nothing at app and refuse to even review the issue at hand for any reason. Every single bank I've ever worked with has much better customer service than this. I've worked for banks and ice never experienced or seen such blatant abuse of authority as I've seen here. If you request supervisors they tell you there are none. There is no clarification and even in their website terms they are completely vague. In my case I deposited this money to afford life saving medications. But because of Simple I had my life put in danger and they could care less. A search online about those kind of issues doesn't take long to discover that simple is not simple. They make judgment calls on an unwritten, undocumented basis that changes with the wind. I had other friends who opened an account the same day as me, deposited checks from XXXX XXXX and another deposited one from XXXX. Both their checks cleared within the one business day. When I request to know why this is I get no responses at all. Just that it is because it is. Then a referral to a policy page that fails to actually explain the policy fully. There's no description of what institutions qualify for one business day deposits or anything. Nowhere to find it and every rep you speak to either says they don't know or asks you to wait whole they check to see and even they don't have a resource that tells them. This is beyond unacceptable in the financial industry. It is bad advertising and it is completely unethical, nearly illegal activity on their part to not disclose these policies in full that they claim to have. Also, when contacting their parent Bank I was told with an XXXX check they too would NOT place any holds on it. Yet ... Simple has?

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation