Consumer complaint received 2025-10-03 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account — Transaction was not authorized
Company: EAST WEST BANK
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
On XXXX after speaking to a XXXX  chat agent who advised me that I need to make a wire transfer into XXXX, because my ACH funding options have been disabled and not allowed due to previously failed ACH, I decided to follow XXXX XXXX agent recommendation and initiated a wire withdrawal using XXXX platform, that offers free incoming and outgoing wire transferss. The amount wired out was {$5100.00} date XXXX. A week later on XX/XX/year> I received an email from XXXX, the financial institution that I was using, to fund my XXXX  account using wire as XXXX XXXX told me to do. I copy pasted email below. Also please see attached pdf of my history. Page XXXX shows the withdrawal of - {$5100.00}. Page XXXX shows XXXX ADJUST WIRE TRANSFER + {$5000.00}. The returned amount was XXXX $ short of the amount wired. Take XXXX for your XXXX XXXX Account XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX A wire transfer that you recently initiated in the amount of {$5100.00} was returned to XXXX by the receiving institution. A returned wire transfer means that some or all of the money you sent has been returned to your account. We recommend that you contact the receiving institution to verify the wire instructions before resubmitting the wire request to XXXX. If the dollar amount returned to your XXXX account is less than the original amount you requested, this may be due to a partial return, or a fee charged by the receiving institution. Please know, that besides multiple attempts speaking to XXXX  support I still did not get any fee reversal of the fee for the wire return services that I have never consented to pay. This was violation of my rights. I asked XXXX  what contractual or regulatory basis XXXX or the bank used to impose this charge, they never provided me with any documents. I have never signed any contract with East West Bank, so unless I would be scheduling wire from my online banking and agreeing for specified charge, it cant be lawful. The bank should either justify the charge clearly or refund it. If the fee is not going to be returned to my XXXX  account in full I will be filing a lawsuit for unathorized management of my money. There is no even such amount as XXXX $ that is stated to be charged for returning initial deposit of closed accounts. The only information I found for XXXX $ amount search is this post by XXXX : Instructions To withdraw funds from XXXX XXXX via wire, click Accounts -> Transfers -> Withdraw -> Wire Transfer. Then, enter the amount youd like to wire and select or add a bank account. If the funds are being wired to a foreign bank, the fee is {$25.00} and will be charged by XXXX XXXX Nothing was international, this wasn't a currency transfer and everything I hold is in US held in USD. All these obviously do not apply to me because I never requested on my online banking a wire transfer. And I also do not have foreign accounts. All transactions I do is between domestic institutions. The {$25.00} was taken out of the returned transfer. I was given no choice, no warning, no notice. It was not my choice! I would schedule a free ACH withdrawal, if I wanted to deposit my money back to where they came from. Definitely not a wire that would cost XXXX $! XXXX is not entitled to any fee unless a regulation explicitly permits it, as they have no agreement with me granting them such authority. Simply having possession of my money does not authorize arbitrarily retaining any portion of it. Without an agreement or regulatory basis, the appropriate course of action for XXXX would be to pursue legal recourse, not engage in self-help, as they appear to have done here. While my attempt to fund my XXXX account may have inconvenienced XXXX, because XXXX didn't intend to keep my account open, such costs are a normal part of doing business. So if moomoo decided not to allow me to schedule a free ACH withdrawal, then XXXX shall pay the fees for wiring the funds back, not me. The {$25.00} charge is entirely arbitrary! Wire fees that you imposed on me are unconstitutional. This violates the First Amendment. The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from a non-consenting client for a fee ; I must choose to pay the fee before anything is taken from me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation