Consumer complaint received 2024-09-26
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account — Transaction was not authorized
Company: ALLIANT CREDIT UNION (CA)

In short : Alliant Credit Union stole money from my sons savings account in order to resolve a mistaken deposit into my wifes account some 8 months earlier. Ive replaced my sons name with my son in messages from Alliant below. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, {$2000.00} was mysteriously taken out of a savings account that I hold jointly with my son. That savings account had otherwise been mostly untouched and quietly earning interest on his money for the previous XXXX years, so we were surprised and alarmed when the money was taken. 

It looks like in XXXX of XXXX a deposit of {$2000.00} was made to an Alliant account held by my wife. At the time we didnt notice it or recognize it as unusual, though perhaps we should have. Most likely, at the time my wife and I assumed that the other had been moving money around, since over the past several years we have used our Alliant accounts to move money to our children to cover college expenses. 

Between then and XXXX, we continued to move money into and between Alliant accounts held by myself, my wife, and our kids, mostly with the purpose of getting money into my sons checking account ( jointly held with me ) to cover tuition, rent, and so on. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, my son noticed the withdrawal. After confirming with me that I didnt know anything about it, he submitted a dispute with Alliant by calling into their Member Services line. We called a couple of times over the following week to check on the progress, but were put off and told that the disputes team was still looking into it and would make a determination within 10 business days.

We got a letter in the post from Alliant in early XXXX, confirming that the dispute was opened on the XXXX. There has been no other mail from XXXX since. 

When I called on XX/XX/XXXX, the XXXX XXXX representative informed me that it looked like the dispute had been closed, but that they had no visibility into why or what was going on. She promised to send an email to their disputes team to ask. I called back on the XXXX, but there was no update. 

I also tried reaching out using the messages feature on the Alliant web portal, but those were simply ignored. 

On the XXXX, I reached a very helpful representative named XXXX XXXX who was able to find a set of letters that had allegedly been sent out. ( We double checked, and saw no indication that any of them had come our way until XXXX shared them ) This included a letter claiming that on XX/XX/XXXX we had withdrawn the dispute ( we hadnt ) and another dated XX/XX/XXXX acknowledging that they would re-open the dispute based on my call to Member Services. 

Also on the XXXX, we got the following cryptic email from another representative, XXXX XXXX : I got an update from my disputes department about your dispute. The funds were inappropriately placed into the account. We received a letter of indemnification from the external financial institution these funds came from to return the funds. This is all the information I can provide. 

Of course, this was completely wrong no such funds had been placed into the savings account in question, or into any account held by my son or myself. 

On Monday the XXXX, after some further frustrating attempts with the Member Services line, I reached out to Alliant through XXXX. This turned out to be at least somewhat helpful, since two days later I got the following ( unsigned ) response via email : Our investigation reveals that an unauthorized deposit in the amount of {$2000.00} was moved through a series of transfers to the account in question. The money was removed from the account and sent to the correct party. 

At this point, we went back through all of our other Alliant accounts until we found a matching deposit of {$2000.00} into my wifes account back in XXXX. Alliant has yet to confirm our suspicion that this is the transaction that they are talking about.

So in summary, what seems to have happened is that Alliant mistakenly put money into my wifes account ; and when that mistake was discovered, they stole money from my son to make up for it. At no point did Alliant make any effort to notify us of the situation or to try to work with us to resolve it. 

Though we believe ( based on the above ) that my wife is the owner of the account which had the original mistaken deposit, she has had no communication from Alliant on the subject. 

I called back on the XXXX and XXXX, but Member Services had no further information. 

When I called again on XX/XX/XXXX, I was finally given a name XXXX, a XXXXpecialist in the member engagement department, is apparently the one working on our case. Ive never spoken to her or seen an email with her name on it. 

I asked for a message to be passed along to XXXX and the disputes department requesting that the following next steps be taken : Alliant must immediately restore the {$2000.00} to my sons savings account, since there was no mistaken deposit into any account owned by him. As Allient confirmed, he was not in any way involved in the mistaken deposit.

Alliant will provide confirmation of which account received the mistaken deposit.

Within 10 business days of receiving this information, we will fund that account with {$2000.00} and notify Alliant that we have done so.

Alliant can then recover the funds from that account.

Finally, my son deserves an apology for the mishandling of this situation, and for taking his money without just cause. 

I also responded via XXXX. In response to the XXXX contact, I got the following unsigned email on XX/XX/XXXX : This is in response to your XXXX message regarding returned funds from [ your son ] XXXX account. Please know that on XX/XX/XXXX, Alliant deposited funds to the wrong members account due to an incorrect account number being provided by another member. Those funds were incrementally transferred out of the wrong members account, including a transfer to your account on XX/XX/XXXX, and ultimately deposited into <your son>s account. Please review your account transaction history from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX for transfers into your and [ your son ] XXXX accounts for additional details on where funds originated. 

The originating ( sending ) bank sent Alliant a request to have the funds sent back so they could be applied to the correct members account. By this time, the funds in question had been transferred to [ your son ] s account which is why the funds were removed from [ your son ] s account. The return took several months to take place as the funds had been transferred. 

Unfortunately, we are unable to share any additional information as you are not an owner on all impacted accounts. 

This confirmed our suspicions about how the theft of my sons money came about. 

Upon calling into Member Services again on the XXXX, I was told that the dispute was denied and that we would be getting a letter in the mail confirming this. At this point, they have declared the matter closed.