Consumer complaint received 2021-09-10
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — Payroll card
Issue: Trouble using the card — Problem with direct deposit
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION (DC)

I am a XXXX  XXXX  hired through a temporary worker service called XXXX. XXXX  conducts their payroll through a company called Comdata. Comdata, where I have an account now, receives my weekly wages and provides an ATM card and the ability to transfer to an external account via direct deposit so that I can then access those funds. 

There are a couple of problems. One, I never received the ATM card from them. These appears to be due to a clerical error that sent the card to the incorrect address, and has caused a cascade of further issues. Before I realized that the card was never going to arrive, I set up an automatic direct deposit with Comdata, so that, in theory, when my paycheck arrives each week at Comdata it would automatically be transferred to my existing external checking account. I registered my settings so that XXXX dollars would be left on my account after the deposit so that the funds that I received while I was waiting for my card would also transfer. The next week, Comdata did send me my full paycheck to the external account, but they did not transfer the other balance from previous paycheck. To remedy this, I attempted to add a " manual '' direct deposit account, which is another option Comdata provides. Upon attempting this, I received an error notice and was told to call customer service. Although no customer service number is provided in their portal ( a serious flaw that could lead to people calling fraudulent numbers ), I eventually found the Comdata 's customer service number and they informed me that I could not have an automatic direct deposit account and a manual account at the same time. I had deleted my automatic deposit account while trying to get the manual deposit set up, when I heard I could not have both types of accounts registered I immediately re-enrolled in the automatic account deposit. There was no message warning me that re-enrolling a manual or automatic deposit account ( even if it was the identical external account ) would require another 10 day verification window. 

This resulted in more of my paychecks going towards my Comdata account balance ( that I could not access because I never received an ATM card ) instead of my external checking account. Three weeks later, when I noticed the automatic transfers had temporarily stopped and saw such a large balance in my account, I again deleted my automatic deposit account and attempted to add a manual deposit account. When I could not find the function to actually execute the manual transfer I called customer service who then informed me of the 10 day verification waiting period. This was the first time that the company ever informed me of any waiting period that would result in an inability to access my own funds. This customer service reresentative also said that it was not true that I could only have an automatic or a manual direct deposit account. This contradicts both my experience using the portal and the previous representative 's guidance. 

They also told me that all Comdata automatic direct deposits had been halted because of 'fraud '. They said that this was the reason I had not received some of my funds. I asked them why they never informed me of this, and they insisted that it was not their responsibility. They also said that they would charge me money to receive a bank card sooner after they incorrectly sent the first one to the wrong address. This means that I would be paying for their errors just to access my own paycheck. Overall I believe they are engaging in malicious and dishonest practices. They purposefully do not want you to be able to easily transfer money to external accounts because then you won't use their ATM card that charges high fees for transactions and withdrawals. Furthermore, when I did not register the lost ATM card with them after a period of a few months they should have notified me or automatically cancelled the card to prevent fraud.