Consumer complaint received 2023-04-25
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Problem making or receiving payments
Company: U.S. BANCORP (MA)

I attempted to make a payment using XXXX on usbankXXXX Before attempting to make a payment, I logged in to usbankXXXX  using a username and password. Additionally I was asked to enter a 2fa code send to me via text message. I did that and was successfully logged in. U.S. Bank heavily promotes XXXX and encourages its use. I selected send money with XXXX and successfully found the person I wanted to send money to. I entered the amount, reviewed the transaction, and selected send. The website froze for a time and then provided a nonsensical error message. I then navigated back to the main usbank.com site to check if the payment could be found. I was asked to login again. After entering the correct username and password, I was presented with a message that said " We're sorry. It looks like your username has been disabled. Please contact XXXX for help. '' I called the number provided and was asked by an automated system to provide the last four digits of my social security number and debit card pin. Finally, I was connected to a human. I was told I would purposefully be blocked from accessing my account for " at least 48 hours '' and needed to be connected to fraud department to resolve the situation. After being asked for my full social security number and explaining the situation, I was told I needed to be connected to the debit fraud department. After holding, the next person that answered seemed to have a poor connection and was possibly using a speakerphone. After again moving through the identity challenges and explaining the situation, the call was disconnected. As the person on the other end had, once again, gone through the identity procedure they knew full well to whom they were speaking and had access to the contact information necessary to call me back. They chose to do nothing instead. I find this to be unacceptable. They knew the problem and who was experiencing it. It took nearly 30 minutes to be connected to that person and they made no effort to resolve the situation nor get back into contact after their phone system failed. 

The larger issue here is that while U.S. Bank is ostensibly trying to protect themselves against fraud, they are failing at it at the customer 's expense. The entire point of online security is making sure actors that should not have access do not while also allowing access to people that should have access. In the same vein, banning all cars from roads to make roads safer is not a solution to road safety. At no point did any of the three people I was shuffled between apologize for the problems created by their staff nor was I offered compensation or a resolution. One person I spoke with said after they decide to allow me to access my deposit account funds again on an arbitrary timeline that I should wait " an additional 25 to 26 hours '' before attempting to use XXXX feature on usbank.com again. That seems to me like a very specific number of hours to wait and is evidence of U.S. Bank being well aware of this issue. Instead of resolving the problems with their own fraud detection, they have provided guidance to their customer service personnel around what to say to an aggrieved customer. I don't think any customer should be subjected to " at least 48 hours '' of not having access to their FDIC protected funds due to failures of U.S. Bank 's failings in fraud detection.