Consumer complaint received 2025-09-19 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments — Problem during payment process
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
Since they have restricted access to every part of my account I will give the closest dates I can come up with. 

Around XX/XX/XXXX I made a payment to the company to pay off my entire balance {$3700.00} For some reason the payment was returned so I started the payment again on or around XX/XX/XXXX using the same details and it went through this time. It is a new bank account. After the payment went through they restricted my account. I called the on the XXXX they told me my account will unlock in 5 days. I waited a few days and on the XXXX decided to call again and ask again to see if I would get the same answer because the answer seemed odd. I received the same answer so I felt confident in XXXX business days the account would be OK. on the XXXX I seen it still wasn't unlocked so I called the company again and was now being told I needed a letter of authorization from my bank on bank letterhead and the manager of the bank needed to sign this also. And since my name isn't on the account my wife 's name is they needed a copy of her ID and a note stating the payment was ok 'd by her. ( My name isn't on the account because I am XXXX and it is a new account that was created and connected to a XXXX  on our home and leaving my name off of the XXXX made it so I didn't have to go to the bank and sign a bunch of things which isn't an easy task due to my XXXX. SO now I have a list of things to do to get this account unlocked. We call the bank the manager of the bank my wife just dealt with opening the account and he stated he has never heard of anything like a letter of authorization and him signing it he didn't feel comfortable doing. He ran through a check list of things to make sure I was not being scammed and was hinting at I should contact the police because he has never heard someone needing this kind of information to authorize a payment. He said he would look into the letter for me and get back to us. on XX/XX/XXXX I called the card again to see if I would receive the same information and I was given the same information again so I felt more confident. Today XX/XX/XXXX XXXX of the rare days my wife has off during banking and business hours I am ready. We head to the bank get into the bank parking lot my wife goes in asks for the letter with signature. This was another branch not the one we know the manager at. And they also were quite confused and they said their system doesn't have the option to even print out what the card needed and they also asked questions about the card number we called and other stuff to make sure we weren't being scammed. So I waiting in the parking lot call the card company again in the bank parking lot verify myself and what is happening and that the bank doesn't understand really what or why they are requiring all of this information. So I give my phone to my wife she goes into the bank with the card customer service lady on the. The bank lady was helping someone quick she told the lady on the phone that and she got upset and she told her it would only take a second. Which it did. I get up to the teller I was speaking with before and as soon as she puts the bank woman on the phone the customer service agent hangs the phone up. At this time we know there is a problem here. We call up the manager we originally opened the account with and he told us he received authorization to create the document and fax it in we sent him the copies of my wife 's ID they also requested and he asked us one last time if this is what he wanted us to do because it sounds like a scam and he faxed in all of the needed paperwork. I don't know if this is going to work to unlock my account or not I don't have much faith in it working though but as of XX/XX/XXXX at night my account is still locked

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation