Consumer complaint received 2025-09-09 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: FIFTH THIRD FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: OH

Complaint narrative:
At the end of XXXX, I had a fraudulent charge of around {$38.00} on my credit card through Fifth Third Bank. After seeing this fraudulent charge, I called Fifth Third Bank and requested that the credit card be canceled and be sent a new one. After a couple days went by, I looked at my mobile banking to see that my credit card account looked like a mess. It appeared that over {$8000.00} was mistakenly disputed as opposed to {$38.00}. 

Since late XXXX, I have been dealing with fifth third and numerous customer service, representatives, dispute team members, and supervisors. I have had to call up to XXXX or more times to get answers about when this dispute would be resolved. Ive been contacted numerous times from merchants, including medical, insurance providers, and cell phone companies, wanting their money back as fifth third was not paying them back in a timely manner after the investigation. Yet, fifth third representatives kept asking me to hold off on paying off the bills as they were resolving the issue. As mentioned previously, only {$38.00} was supposed to be disputed from XXXX merchant. Ive gotten tons of mail in the last several weeks stating that the merchants are not paying me back ( no duh ). Each time I call XXXX they tell me it will be resolved in XXXX more days. Ive heard this numerous times. I am receiving mixed messages from multiple people in different departments. It made sense to me that this could take months to resolve. These merchants are wanting their money back. I am gathering late fees. Ive never received phone calls from anyone through fifth third with an issue that I consider serious. I am always the one calling to follow up.

As I noticed many adjustments, credits, chargebacks, I thought everything was settled weeks ago. There has been a lot of activity on my credit card account and it is very confusing. Its hard for me to even trust how everything has settled out.I truly feel like money has been taken from me. I just received a phone call from a medical provider asking to pay them back the {$700.00} I owed them ( again ). I was unsure why XXXX had not given them the {$700.00} back that I already sent them once the dispute was investigated and finalized. It has been over XXXX months since this investigation started. No representative cared to call and tell me that they do not pay medical providers back? Yet, they will credit me the money. What if I had gone into collections? No one told me that they credit back medical bills and expect me to pay it back? That should not be my responsibility. How horrible of them to take money away from these merchants, and then not pay them back in a timely manner? At no point in time did I notice an additional {$700.00} in my account to then pay this medical provider back. Now I feel like I am paying out an additional {$700.00}. 

My most recent call consisted of checking these charges as I was confused how this medical bill was not paid back yet by fifth third. I refuse to pay more money out-of-pocket, especially if Ive already paid it XXXX and I have no trust in fifth third anymore or how they are handling my banking. 

The answers I commonly get are I do not know, please wait XXXX to XXXX  days, or a third-party handles all of this. Ive been dealing with this for over XXXX months, and it is unacceptable. Theres no compensation for me having to do all of the legwork when this was never my fault. I plan to leave Fifth Third Bank as soon as I can. The staff lacks knowledge and has no idea what is ever going on. Their notetaking is horrible. I repeat my situation each time a phone conversation begins as they have no idea what has occurred. 

I felt that each person I talked to wanted to rush me off the phone as they didnt want deal with it as they didnt have the answers. 

I had no advocate in this entire process, and this has taken a lot of time and energy out of me these last several months. 

I have had other issues with Fifth Third Bank, and this was the final straw.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation