Consumer complaint received 2025-05-19 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: VA

Complaint narrative:
I was contacted by a teller at the Truist branch banking location on XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX asking if I had written a check for {$1200.00} to my XXXX  as she was in the branch trying to cash it. I advised that I did not and told her not to cash it. She advised that I needed to come in to the branch as there had been a lot of activity on my account. 
I got off work and went to the branch and sat with the banker as he printed off the current and previous month 's statement and circled checks my XXXX  had written totaling between XXXX. 

I trusted this banker was helping me locate all of the fraud. I told him I had not been receiving my statements or mail. I thought he was the professional and was helping me identify all of the transactions. He told me I should get online banking and go to paperless statements. He set that up. He told me I shouldn't have that much money setting in my checking and a savings so he sat up a Money Market. I was very stressed but kept getting the feeling that he was more interested in setting up accounts than helping me with the trauma I was in. 

I asked him about my mortgage payment and car insurance auto-drafts that were coming through and he suggested that I leave the fraud account open and leave enough money in it for my mortgage and car insurance. Big mistake as my XXXX  had left that branch with that {$1200.00} check and she cashed it when she left and the fraud account was overdrawn and I did not have enough money in it for my mortgage or car insurance. 

Now I am out another {$1200.00} because of the bank 's handling this and also dealing with the trauma of peeling back the onion and finding out everything else my XXXX  had done, including my credit cards and taking me for over {$30000.00}. 

I'm told that I would be receiving a call from the fraud team about the investigation. I'm told that the bank will be pursuing criminal charges against my XXXX. 

XXXX XXXX  passes with no contact whatsover from Truist bank and I get a claim denial letter in the mail stating a bald-faced lie. " Truist denies your claim for reimbursement because prior ( non-disputed transactions by the suspect were authorized by you. '' If this is the case, why did the banker not tell me about those transactions. Why, when I told him I had not received statements, did he not due his due-diligence and go farther back on the statements. Is it because it was XXXX? 

So I was upset and called the contact center for Truist and asked to speak to a Supervisor, who told me that the reason my claim was denied was not that there were other transactions but because I did not report my claim in a timely manner. I don't know how I could have reported it more timely. I left work and went immediately to the branch. I told her this and she asked if I had read my depositors agreement. Well I did, after the call and it says, You agree to report any lost or stolen checks on unauthorized transactions on your account immediately upon discovery. '' That is exactly what I did. Was I supposed to teleport to the branch? 

I asked to have my claim reopened and reviewed again and she continued to ask me if I had any new information. I kept giving her all the information I had. I asked for statement copies. I have not received them. I asked for documentation of what transactions they were talking about in that letter. I have received nothing. I asked for the call to be escalated higher. She would not transfer me. 

The following day I received a voice mail at work from someone in the fraud department with a number to call back. I called and it went to their contact center where a half an hour of my time was wasted with an agent who would not transfer me to the person who called but, like a comedy, persisted in annoying me over and over reading the notes from the call to the supervisor the previous day. I never got to to speak to the person from the fraud department who called me so I could give them my police report number and the details on the claim. Oh, and also, again, like a comedy later I got a voice mail from the supervisor I spoke to the previous day. The confused phone agent I had spoken to earlier never could figure out who from the fraud department called me so erroneously gave a call back request to that supervisor. 

I can get no help from Truist. There is no fraud protection from this bank. 

- I have never at any time given my XXXX  permission to take checks from my purse or wallet. 
- I have never at any time given my XXXX  permission to forge my name on my checks from Truist bank and cash them. 
- I am an excellent customer with good balances and have never had an overdraft or anything like that. I further have a history of not writing checks. Everything is ACH, online, or over the phone. 
- I reported this fraud immediately and as soon as I became aware. 
- I specifically asked the banker who helped me with the claim to help me because I had not been receiving statements. I did not get that help and still have not. 
- I have been given XXXX conflicting reasons for claim denial and both of them are untruthful and not valid. 
- I have asked for documentation regarding why my claim was denied and have not received it. 
XXXX Truist has failed to keep my deposited money safe. I was misadvised by the banker to keep the fraud account open causing me to lose another {$1200.00}. 
- The banker was more concerned about opening new accounts. I'm still sitting here wondering what a money market is and why he gave me checks for it but I am under so much stress I can't think straight to figure it out and I definitely don't want to go back into the branch as I have already missed work XXXX  times over this. Plus another lengthy unnecessary phone call while at work trying to return a phone call to the fraud dept. 
- Truist never contacted me to obtain the details of the claim. I have had no contact from Truist, other than those XXXX completely useless calls. No one has taken my police report information. No one has asked any details about what transpired. 
- No claim investigation was performed. If it was, someone would have contacted me. 
- No one, at all, from Truist Bank, has made any effort to help me, when they allowed my funds to be taken from my account. 

I want to know why, something did not flag or cause some type of alert, when you have someone who does not write checks and suddenly a ton of large checks are coming through their account? There is no fraud protection at Truist Bank.

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