Consumer complaint received 2022-12-08
Company: GOLDMAN SACHS BANK USA
State: UT
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: CD (Certificate of Deposit)
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed

Complaint:
Dealing with Marcus has always been difficult. I am dealing with them because of the lack of alternatives to obtain reasonable yields on bank accounts. There is minimal customer service and the app/website ( XXXX ) is severely limited in terms of information provided and types of transactions that can be accomplished. In the most recent case, I had a CD that was coming to its maturation date. I simply wanted to take the low-yield CD and put the entire balance into a savings account at Marcus. This simple transaction could not be accomplished on the XXXX so I called their highly automated and impersonal phone system and eventually ( after several tries ) set up the transfer with a phone rep. 

On the CD maturation date, however, the funds were not handled as arranged. Marcus never informed me that this happened ; I had to discover this when checking the account almost XXXX weeks later. I called and had to speak to 5 or 6 individuals on several calls. Part of this involved trying to set up a new savings account jointly owned by my wife and I. I had to get my wife on the phone to set up this account ; the first time we went through the process, the account apparently was never set up, because I had to repeat the entire process again on a later call. Promises to call back were not kept and after each failed interaction I had to work my way through an annoying and time-wasting automated phone system. Reps were ignorant of how to fix the issue. 

Marcus acknowledged that their error had caused the problem but were unhelpful in implementing a solution. My request to learn about the current status/location of the funds ( since the CD had matured XXXX weeks ago ) could not or would not be answered. Requests to speak with a manager were answered with a response that a manager would call me, but no call was ever received by me. At this moment, I still do not know the status or precise location of my funds ; the agreed upon maturation plan has not been carried out ; Goldman is refusing to credit me with interest that has been lost by their failure to transfer the funds to the savings account on the arranged date ; questions about the propriety and sufficiency of their customer support given the large amounts involved have not been answered or resolved. 

The takeaways from this experience are : ( 1 ) Goldman mishandles large amounts of money and do not inform the customer when an error occurs.

( 2 ) Goldman does not follow instructions previously agreed with a customer and does nothing to alert the customer that the agreed plan was not completed ( XXXX ) Substantial amounts of money, representing a substantial portion of a customer 's life savings, go into a kind of limbo and nobody at Goldman is available to explain their exact status or how the problem can be solved ( 4 ) Promises to " get back '' to the customer are not honored ( 5 ) Employees lack the expertise, authority and/or willingness to properly escalate issues that are not getting resolved. Employees state that they can not identify who their supervisors are and that they can not contact individuals with whom a customer has previously dealt, forcing the customer to repeatedly provide the same information and background to a new person each time. No system seems to exist to capture customer information to allow cases to be seamlessly processed. 

( XXXX ) Employees do not provide actual problem-solving ; rather, the all read from a pre-prepared script, but the canned responses they insist on never deviating from do not solve the issues. 

( 7 ) Goldman does not take responsibility for errors that it makes in handling customer funds, including failing to credit interest that would have been earned had the customer 's instructions, as previously agreed with Goldman reps, been properly carried out.

I need assurances that these issues have been fully resolved, an authoritative and reliable accounting of the status of my accounts and assurances from an appropriately senior individual as to how the accounts will be handled in the future. 

Thank you.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation