Consumer complaint received 2022-04-24
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: VA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
RE : Ally bank Money market account is locked 2 weeks after receiving the transferred funds. 


Dear Madam/ Sir, I successfully opened the Money Market account online at Ally bank, providing requested documentation and once I have received the confirmation from Ally bank, I transferred {$150000.00} to this account on XX/XX/22. Subsequently I have received the debit card as well as check book. 

On XX/XX/22 at XXXX XXXX, I have received an email from Ally bank indicating : Your telephone PIN has been changed. If you didnt make this change, call us immediately at XXXX. 
I replied to the email that I have not made any changes to the account and since I have never set any telephone PIN, I was positive that this is a phishing email. Since I have not received any response by email, I called the customer service on XX/XX/22 and XX/XX/22. 

Despite providing repeatedly my name, SS, DOB, address, mothers maiden name and security question that I set up during opening the account, to at least dozen of agents and their supervisors, who refused to provide any information and transferred me to an agent at the " loss prevention department ''. She asked the same identification questions. As these were not enough to identify me, she inquired about my height. At this point, it was not clear to me where this was going and how my height would be an identifier and the purpose of this phishing email sent by the Ally bank to lead to this type of interaction. 
This agents interaction was far from a professional employee of a reputable bank and her rudeness was astonishing at a point that I felt unease about who Ally bank hires, where are they operating from, what are their backgrounds and what kind of training or education do they have, if any and whether the security of the sensitive data of a customer is of any importance to the Ally bank leadership. She mentioned I will receive an email. The email was different from an official letter from a traditional bank and was written in a casual manner with lots of abbreviations, requesting to upload and send her on an " unsecured email '' the SS, DL, A selfie holding DL, UB. 
Subsequently, I realized that she locked my account. 

On XX/XX/22 I received another email from Ally bank to call loss prevention department at XXXX. I called on XX/XX/22 and gave the agent SS, DOB, address, security question, mothers name. Nevertheless, if all these informations were not enough, she asked to send documents requested before, over an unsecured email. When I questioned why these documents were not requested at the time of opening of the account. She simply hanged up. 

I called a supervisor and she mentioned I will be contacted by an specialist. It has been a week and I have not received any correspondents from anyone at Ally bank, while my account and money is sequestered by this corporation. 

I am not clear how does the leadership at Ally bank provide safeguard and data security and prevention of data breach of the customers when any customer service agent directly requests and has easy access to these data on their personal computer at home during the phone conversations that could be easily stored and hence leading potentially to data breach. 
It seems Ally bank hires very young and inexperienced employees without proper training to work remotely to increase profitability of the corporation with complete disregard of possibility of the data breach for the customers and lack of confidentiality. 
Furthermore, what has been striking is the lack of customer care or complaint department. In 21st century, they provide the customers with a po box mailing address to file a complaint, clearly to deter customers to do so.That speaks loudly for the approval of the leadership of this corporation regarding this well organized process to harass the customers and trapping their funds and profiting by investing on the well locked funds after so called misleading " successful account opening ''. 

I am conflicted and concerned about the purpose of the misleading phishing like e-mail, in attempt to force the customers to call the customer service, in order to lock their account and funds, regardless of all the identifiers confirmation. This was mentioned and confirmed at least by two agents, stating : Thats what Ally bank does. 
In addition, searching online, I encountered many similar complaints from customers receiving the exact phishing like email message after successful opening of the account and transferring the fund. Some people felt courageous to send their sensitive documents via unsecured email. Nevertheless, their account remained locked and their funds were sequestered by Ally bank. 

I would like to get advise as why these documents were not requested and authenticated at the time of opening of the account before the approval and transferring funds. I wonder how this is explained and legally approved at their state and federal regulatory compliance requirement. 


At this point, I do not feel comfortable to upload my sensitive documents on an unsecured email and much less I feel very uneasy to send them to the employees at the loss prevention department. In case they require to provide more documentation for closure than opening the account, I do prefer to upload them securely online at Ally website, as I have done for opening the account. However, I do not have access to my online account, since it has been locked. 

I greatly appreciate your advise and assistance in this matter and thank you in advance.

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 non-monetary relief