Consumer complaint received 2017-03-30
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
State: MD
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Using a debit or ATM card

Complaint:
This is an outrageously embarrassing complaint on my behalf, yet one of a very serious matter that has left me very frightened. After receiving a financial windfall in XX/XX/XXXX, I celebrated a bit too much one night and came home very late and quite XXXX in the early morning of XX/XX/XXXX. After watching professional poker on television, I foolishly decided that I wanted to try to gamble a bit with my new found money. I live in Maryland, and casino gambling is legal and regulated here, although I have NEVER been to a local casino. I was far too XXXX to drive to a local casino, so being a naive and novice gambler, I decided to do an internet search for online casinos. After looking at several " referral sites '' I decided on XXXX and XXXX as they were advertised to take deposits from players in the United States. Again, being naive, I assumed that everything was fully legal and that I, and the casino sites, would be abiding by all local and federal regulations ( again, gambling is legal in my state, so I had no reason to believe that I was doing anything wrong ). I made XXXX deposits with XXXX - XXXX {$200.00} - and XXXX deposits with XXXX - all four {$500.00} each. As a newly minted degenerate, I continued to gamble and drink throughout the day. Admittedly, I lost the {$500.00} I deposited with XXXX, but I won a considerable sum with XXXX - plus {$1500.00}. However, when I tried to withdraw my winnings, I was told that I needed to make a certain number of deposits before I could withdraw (??? ). I tried to make more deposits, but I could not. I called SunTrust to find out why, and they told me they were concerned about fraudulent activity. They asked me if I had made charges in amounts that sounded similar to the purchases I just made, and, unfortunately, being in a XXXX - and by now agitated - state, I hurriedly and recalcitrantly just tried to wave the customer service agent off and kept saying, " Yes, yes, yes. I made those charges. '' Regardless, they were still concerned about the nature of the transactions, and blocked my card. I finally went to bed, feeling like the most gullible loser in creation. The next morning I woke up, checked my bank statement online, and noticed I had authorizations from FOUR different merchants whom I had no idea whom they are, and had never done business with any of them. Futhermore, the amounts of the charges were {$200.00}, {$210.00}, XXXX for {$490.00}, and XXXX for {$510.00}. None of the merchants are located in the United States. I immediately went to my local branch and filed a fraud complaint. I told them the entire truthful story of what happened, and filed on the basis that I never received goods nor services from these merchants, and I have no idea who they are. That these merchants were given my financial information left me aghast. Long story short, they denied my claim on the basis of " implied consent ''. " Implied consent '' has no bearing in this case, and is being applied inappropriately and recklessly. I, as the cardholder, can not be reasonably or prudently accused of naivety in not knowing that these websites were going to share my financial information with another third party, as there is no written notice of this mentioned in the Terms and Conditions of either site. I still do not understand the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of XX/XX/XXXX ( UIGEA ), but I do know that by ignoring my willful admission that I made these deposits in good faith, without knowledge of how they would be conducted, SunTrust is tacitly condoning them by denying my claim, and they are in violation of UIGEA. NOT ONLY THIS, but the day after I filed my fraud complaint, SunTrust allowed the merchant who initially authorized XXXX to take a final payment of XXXX. I have proof of all of these events.

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