Consumer complaint received 2022-07-22
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Banking errors
Company: OLD NATIONAL BANCORP (IL)

My bank First Midwest Bank merged with Old National Bank on XX/XX/XXXX. I had a question with mobile banking on XX/XX/XXXX because my deposit wasn't showing up. I was unable to reach Old National despite multiple phone calls with hold times in excess of an hour. One call I held for two hours without reaching anyone before hanging up. Eventually my mobile deposit showed up. Around noon on XX/XX/XXXX I made a deposit through the XXXX XXXX XXXX drive thru of {$1000.00} check drawn off my joint bank account at XXXX. I deposit a minimum of {$950.00} this way every two weeks when my husband gets paid. Instead of a regular bank reciept, I received what looked like a gas station receipt evidencing my deposit ( see attached ). I thought it was strange but since the information on it looked correct, I left the bank. When I signed onto online banking to verify a different charge went through, I noticed that my deposit wasn't showing up in either my current or available balance as had been the case previously. I looked at my account details screen and it reflected a pending deposit for {$1000.00}, a pending debit transaction of {$1000.00} and a pending debit of {$85.00} that I made yesterday ( see screen shot attached ). I called customer care and the on-hold message indicated wait times of more than 60 minutes. My wait time was around 20 minutes. The agent I spoke to informed me that everything was correct, and that the teller had placed a hold on my deposit at the time of deposit. I asked why a hold would have been placed, I didn't have any issues with my accounts or with deposited items being returned. The agent told me a hold was placed because the check I deposited wasn't cash or an Old National check. I asked why the transaction is showing up on my account as a credit and a debit for the same amount? Was there a problem? The agent told me that was just the way things looked when a hold was placed on the account. That didn't make sense to me so I asked her additional questions about how I can be sure my deposit is really going to show up. She said it would and that she was transferring me to Online Banking. Before I could respond I was transferred back to the queue where I got the message about the hour long hold time again. This time, I held for 15-minutes andhad to start all over again explaining what happened. The new agent told me the deposit was in my account and that she had access to the hold screen that I couldn't see. She said for some reason when the teller places a hold it shows up in online banking as a pending deposit and a pending debit. I told her I thought that was very confusing. I then asked her why the teller hadn't told me that a hold was being placed when I made the deposit. She said that she didn't know but that tellers were placing a one-day teller hold on all former XXXX account deposits as they do for all Old National customers. I asked if this had been included in the giant booklet Old Nat sent us and the agent said she didn't know. I also told her that there was no sign or anything in the drive through alerting customers to the hold that would be placed and that I didn't understand why the teller wouldn't inform a customer that the hold was being placed. The agent said she wasn't sure. I asked what happens if my deposit doesn't show up in my account on Monday? Was there a direct number that I could call? She told me there wasn't a direct line that I either had to call the general number or visit a branch. I told her I thought that customer service had been poor because it seemed like XXXX XXXX was not prepared for customer questions and issues following the merger. I also told them that they needed to get more people on the phones so that customers didn't need to spend hours trying to resolve easy issues or get questions answered. She apologized and indicated that wait times had gotten better - customers were only waiting about 20 minutes today.

At this point I still don't know for a fact my money will be in my account on Monday. I don't know why I wasn't informed about the hold placed on my account. I don't understand why wait times are still over an hour or even 20 minutes. It is really stressful not knowing if your money is there for you. The day after the merger wait times were in excess of 2 hours. Lines to see bankers were outside the door around the building. Last week my neighbor was told that there was an hour and a half wait time to see a live banker. In order to get someone to respond to multiple attempts at contact merger week, my son emailed the President whose name and email address were posted on XXXX by another angry customer. He got a response that someone would call him since he was locked out of his account and needed to pay bills. He got no call back from anyone. He did ultimately resolve his issue but not without a lot of frustration and a lot of time spent waiting on hold.