Consumer complaint received 2025-07-29 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: HUNTINGTON NATIONAL BANK, THE
State: MI

Complaint narrative:
Im writing to make you aware of an unfortunate fraud situation regarding Huntington Bank, that has greatly affected my business, my trust in financial institutions and caused me to question the banking policies and provisions in keeping bank customers safe from fraudulent activities. 

Im hoping by reaching out, you can help shed light on how XXXX ( and likely other banks ) are treating us, their customers, in favor of protecting those who commit fraudulent acts and their employees who let it happen. They choose to extort their customers into paying for expensive enhanced account services, that the customer has to monitor themselves ( in essence, do the bank 's job for them ) and if you deny the coverage ( or even if you dont accept OR deny ) they blame you for the fraud and refuse to reimburse you your losses, taking XXXX responsibility for any of it. 

In early XXXX, my bookkeeper informed me of suspicious activity on my account. It appeared that in XX/XX/XXXX, someone in another state ( XXXX, XXXX ) walked in to XXXX different Huntington Bank branches with counterfeit versions of my business checks. They looked similar to my actual checks, but were not an exact match. The check numbers were consecutive, and in my own actual checkbook, I wasnt even up to those numbers yet. The checks with those number were still present and unused in my checkbook. 

The tellers cashed these checks for this person, to the tune of almost {$5000.00}. This person did not have a Huntington account, and may or may not have used stolen identification. The checks were signed with a stamp of my actual signature, but inspections shows they match each other exactly, which is not possible if it was actually signed by me. 

Huntington has never denied that this is exactly what took place. They investigated it and agreed this was counterfeit, fraudulent activity. However, they denied my claim for reimbursement, telling me that I declined their offer of paying for these extra protections and signed something when I opened my account that somehow waived my rights to reimbursement. 

The letter they sent me had no name, no email address, no phone number in which to discuss this or appeal the decision. I had to go through my local branch and have XXXX of the managers there attempt to resolve this. They stopped returning my calls and emails in a timely fashion, and when I did get to communicate with them, they acted like they didnt know what to do about any of this. 

It should be known that I NEVER signed up for Huntington. I was a faithful XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX customer to start with. I chose them XXXX XXXXears ago. Then I got absorbed by XXXX, then XXXX, and then Huntington. At that point, it was such an ordeal to change banks when youre running a busy company, so I just stayed with XXXX. Ergo, I never opened an account and never signed any paperwork waiving my rights to anything. So, I thought my appeal had legs on that alone. 

To have your bank tell you that your money is NOT safe with their institution UNLESS you agree to pay nearly {$100.00} or more per month for a special monitoring system, whereby you, the customer, has to log-in daily and monitor the account yourself, is extortion. This is exactly what they have told me and have basically made this whole thing my fault that their tellers accepted out of state checks from a non-Huntington customer and gave away my money to them. They take XXXX responsibility because I didnt pay them extra per month, and in effect are protecting the fraudster, not me, the customer. 

It should also be known that I was NEVER offered these protections, never signed anything saying I declined them, which is what their denial was based on. In addition, I DO pay over {$1000.00} per year for special business checks that include heat-sensitive features, holograms and myriad other features to prevent fraud. Those extra protections didnt work. 

Last week, I sent an email trying to escalate things, since I was getting no response from my local branch contact. I got a response from someone named XXXX in their fraud department. He again denied my claim, saying that back in XXXX, I supposedly had a phone conversation with some name XXXX XXXX ( I do not know this person, and do not believe he is now or has ever worked at any local Huntington branches ). They could not tell me the exact context of this conversation, only saying that the extra features were discussed. They also admitted I never formally declined them either. So, IF it was brought up in a conversation of some sort, it was likely conversational and not a formal proposal of such. They based their denial on the fact I supposedly signed something, which never happened. 

If I recall correctly, this was about the time Huntington had bought out my prior bank and I had some trouble getting connected to the new online banking system. I did have conversation with people trying to help me create my new log-ins and navigate the new system. It is possible the subject came up at that time, but in a conversational way, and certainly not informing me that if I didnt accept this extra feature expense, any claim I ever had would be denied.

At this point, they have still decided to deny my claim and I feel this is unjust and unfair. I'm seeking any avenue to escalate this in the effort to get my funds refunded to me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation