Consumer complaint received 2024-10-28
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION (FL)

On XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX I participated in an auction through an auction house being hosted online. The auction was marketed as a standard auction with bidders and winners. I bid on multiple items through an auction house called XXXX [ AKA XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ]. I lost each of the auctions I entered bids on. Afterwhich I moved onto a different auction house entirely, with the belief that I would not be charged for my losing bids. The next day I woke to multiple invoices for the bids placed as if I had won the auctions. I contacted the merchant immediately on XX/XX/XXXX as I believed these charges to have been in error. The merchant indicated that hidden in their terms of service was a clause that allowed them to accept losing bids, but that did not require them to deliver the item bid on, or in fact any items at all. 

I protested as this was clearly fraudulent or at best misleading and deceptive. The merchant refused the refund and informed me that they did not have the item in stock but would try to aquire one expected to take more than 30 days. The merchant 's terms of service also mentioned that if I did not want to wait for the item they would provide a full refund. I demanded this be done. The merchant refused and offered to return my funds only if I paid them an additional 25 % cancelation fee. I told the merchant to return my funds or I would ve forced to dispute this with my bank. The merchant attempted to deter me from doing this by telling me ( falsely ) that they would charge me an additional {$250.00} for each claim I submitted with my bank. 

I contacted my bank immediately on XX/XX/XXXX, reported the fraud, and requested a chargeback and new card. 

The fraud intake specialist deactivated my card and ordered a new card. Truist 's system does not transfer transaction history to the replacement card 's record. So when the fraud intake specialist attached the claim to the newly created card [ by mistake ] the claim was denied by the fraud analyst. This was denied due to the analyst stating that the charges never took place ( because they didn't bother to look at the old card number ). 

While this process was underway - I made numerous calls to the Truist customer service and fraud teams. Each time I was assured that it was still being reviewed. Each intake specialist assured me that they understood and agreed it was CLEARLY fraudulent and they couldn't believe the merchant was attempting to do something like this. During this time however my claim had already been long reviewed and denied, but this was not communicated to me which wasted significant time. 

Eventually I recieved the letter denying the claim and I called immediately to correct the claim and direct the fraud to to the recently deactivated card where the transactions in fact were. They apologized, admitted the mistake, and assured me they claim would be resubmitted and resolved. Once again assuring me that this was an easy claim based on the scenerio and I could rest easy. 

Over the coming weeks I once again continued to call to check the status. Once again each call was met with a confident representative indicating it would be resolved. Once again I recieved a letter indicating that the claim was denied. This time it was denied because Truist determined I recieved the items I paid for. This was not true. 

I called Truist fraud team and explained again that I had not recieved any merchandise from the merchant. That the only thing I had recieved were invoices and brochures. 

After being put on with a supervisor and crying my way through the explanation I was told that another review would not be done because 2 reviews was the maximum [ despite one review being botched by them ]. The supervisor finally after I begged informed me I would need a police report to move the claim along. 

I went to great lengths for this. I filled a police report in my county in Florida, as well as the merchant 's county in North Dakota. During my communications with the officer in North Dakota it was recommended I contact Federal law enforcement as well, since there was a XXXX sale involved. I spoke to the ATF who was very familiar with this merchant and their fraudulent schemes. They informed me of other related investigations and attached my issue to those which also included an FBI investigation. 

I went back to Truist and provided them all of this, as well as screenshots from the merchant commenting that I had not recieved any items. 

Truist STILL denied my claim again stating that I " recieved benefit '' from the purchase. They would not tell me what this benefit was. Truist had their " consumer advocacy '' team [ complaints team ] contact me to " advocate '' for me. The " advocate '' simply verified me, put me on hold, then returned to repeatedly state the same things already found in the denial letter with no advice or path forward. 

As Truist had left me with no other option but to attempt to at least aquire the merchandise [ Truist told me working with the merchant was my only option ], I attempted to do so. The merchant had not sent me any items and claimed I was in the 'que ' with no timeline. 

I pushed back that I couldn't be in a que as it would be illegal to send the XXXX to my home and they did not have a XXXX XXXX XXXX [ XXXX ] dealer on file for me. The merchant then demanded that I provide them one within 72 hours or I would be subject to storage fees ( for an item they aren't storing ). Less than 48 hours later I recieved an email from the merchant indicating that they were dissatisfied that I had filed a XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX complaint against them, and that the 72 hours was up [ it wasn't ] and I world have to pay an additional {$650.00} to recieve the items. 

I took this information to Truist AGAIN to demonstrate proof the merchant has not sent me the items and are now attempting to extort additional funds from me. Truist re-opened the case and then promptly closed the case as being a " merchant dispute '' since I had more requested the merchandise [ which Truist recommended I do ], and was no longer eligible to be a fraud claim! 

I suspect that Truist lacked the ability to exercise a chargeback on the vendor after their initial botched claim process. That Truist is attempting to scuttle any and all claims to avoid paying out themselves for the claim now that it has likely passed the claim period [ through no one 's fault but Truists ' ]. 

This had lead to significant financial harm to myself and my business. It has also lead to extreme emotional and mental harm, caused by the repeated gaslughting, misdirection, and inability/unwillingness to protect me as a member of the bank.