Consumer complaint received 2024-07-15
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: Relay Financial (US), Corp. (MI)

On XX/XX/XXXX I opened a new bank account at Relay Bank online. The initial deposit to open the account was {$5.00} made from my personal account at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I made this deposit to Relay which is a XXXX company of XXXX XXXX. The bank account was opened for my new XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, my new customer XXXX XXXX XXXX, wired me the funds of {$19000.00} in payment for a tiny house I sold her. My intention was to take this money and use it to fund my new financial coaching business. 

Relay bank has a profit first feature I was excited to use which is why I went with them. The profit first method uses subaccounts and Relay had this built in to their main account. I was excited to have subaccounts with their own account numbers. As I have a XXXX  XXXX, it was convenient to hold money for each of my new businesses in these subaccounts. I put money in my sub account for my coaching business, XXXX XXXX XXXX. The account number for this sub account XXXX. This is the account I made my external transfers in question from. 

I was very excited to get my new business going and at first, all was well. I first sent an ACH of {$1200.00} to XXXX XXXX, who is slated to speak at an event I am planning on holding. Then I purchased a new laptop from XXXX XXXX from this business account the amount of {$1.00}, XXXX. I also wired myself a {$1000.00} owners draw to the personal bank account I used to open the business account at Relay Bank. 

All the transactions went through well except the {$1000.00} wire to myself. I called my personal bank. My personal bank had no record of the transaction being put through. I thought that was odd as wires are supposed to go through the same day. 

Then I called Relay, my business bank. They sent me an email an asked me to answer questions regarding who I was doing business with, the nature of that business, the nature of the {$1000.00} wire etc. I sent them the invoices from the house sale, the reason for all the transactions. They thanked me and said they were " working on it '' and reassured me that I would have my access to my funds after there brief investigation. 

This was 2 weeks ago. 

I have been calling them everyday since last week. They keep telling me " they are working on it '' or they are " expediting it '' or they will " call me back ''. THEY HAVE GIVEN ME ZERO INFORMATION. They never call me back as they promised. This is all very scammy. 

I occasionally get an email saying thank you for my patience they are expediting and working on it. Still, I have gotten zero resolution. I always have to call them the next day. They will not give me any information about what is happening. They are simply holding my funds with no explanation. They have now also frozen my debit cards. I have no access to the remaining {$15000.00} in my account. 

To make matters worse, I got a message from my customer XXXX XXXX XXXX. She was very concerned that her bank had called her 3 TIMES to verify our transaction was not fraudulent. She repeatedly reassured them it was a consensual transaction. Despite repeated reassurance she has been harrassed and frankly, it doesn't look good on me when they keep calling her " investigating ''. People get weird about that and it is very disturbing. 

I am distressed, angry and frustrated and frankly, scared. I have put a lot on the line to build this business and am just coming off a long illness and rebuilding my life and this is utterly devastating. It is emotionally difficult and financially distressing. 

I understand the federal government investigates wire transfers overy {$10000.00} and I support this need to prevent terrorism and money laundering. However, I have been 100 % compliant. have filed my Beneficial Owners Information with XXXX and I have a XXXX number so I can't imagine that the IRS and XXXX are the issue. I have NO outstanding IRS obligations of any kind. 

My full legal name is XXXX XXXX. XXXX. My Social Security number is XXXX. 

The main bank account is XXXX XXXX XXXX. The bank account number is XXXX. Relay also give us " sub accounts '' with their own bank account numbers. The bank account number from which I pulled the funds is titled -- XXXX XXXX and its sub bank account number is XXXX. 

My business EIN for XXXX XXXX XXXX is XXXX. This is the EIN registered with Relay bank for this account. 

My XXXX number is XXXX I will answer any questions you may have. My cell phone number is XXXX. Please, please help me with this. I don't know what else to do. I don't even have the money to hire an attorney at this point.