Consumer complaint received 2024-11-07 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: TRUIST FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MD

Complaint narrative:
I took out a mortgage with SunTrust/Truist in late XXXX and at the same time opened a checking account in which I deposited {$10000.00}. After my initial deposit, I never authorized or made any deposits, withdrawals or any other actions related to the account. I never used the account. In XXXX, I received a notice of potential fraudulent activity regarding this account and I followed up with Truist 's fraud department to alert them that I did not take or authorize any actions related to the account. After the department investigated, I received letters noting the compromise of my personal information and corrective actions taken. After that I received a number of normal bank statements showing a balance of roughly {$10000.00} in the account. 
In XXXX of XXXX I received a letter from Truist that the account had been blocked and would be closed. I waited for additional correspondence regarding the return of my deposits, but after hearing nothing reached out to the Fraud Management Department copied on the notice. On a call on XX/XX/XXXX I was informed that my funds were in suspense given the pending investigation and that I should wait to be contacted. I requested a timeline for next steps and was repeatedly denied. I explained that I was simply requesting the return of my funds. The representative could not tell me why the account was in suspense, what the investigation related to or provide any timeline regarding when my funds would be returned. After a frustrating extended call, I decided to allow the bank more time to resolve this issue. I asked the representative to document our call and was assigned another case number. 
After receiving no additional correspondence from Truist, in early XXXX of XXXX I again called the Fraud Management Department to request the return of my funds. In my first attempt I was bounced around to three different representatives in different departments, all of which I had to retell the same story despite having referenced the case numbers. After an hour of frustrating conversations and hold music I was disconnected and gave up not wanting to repeat the process. 
On XX/XX/XXXX I repeated this exercise, and after an hour of hold music and repeating the same conversation with multiple representatives, I forced the transfer to a manager and spoke with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  who could/would not provide more specific employee information that I could use to document the call. After some investigation XXXX XXXX did conclude that my case had been assigned to an account XXXX, but it was strange that it had not been resolved and my deposits had not been returned. I requested the name and contact information of the account officer, but XXXX XXXX stated she was not allowed to provide that information. I pushed XXXX XXXX to provide a timeline for how and when my issues would be resolved, which she was unwilling to provide. The best she could do was offer to contact the account manager and get back to me with what she could find out. I relayed to her that I wanted a firm timeline for resolution and return of my funds, and that she was to contact me within 24 hours of our call to provide an update. 
I did receive a voicemail from XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX with no additional information other than asking me to return her call on a new XXXX number. I called the number and spent another hour explaining the background to multiple representatives before finally getting transferred to another Manager the Fraud Department named XXXX XXXX XXXX who also would not provide more detailed information for identification purposes ). She said that XXXX XXXX was unavailable. She did pull up my account and noted a record of my conversations in the system, but said there was nothing new for her to tell me. I told XXXX XXXX I needed a firm timeline for resolution of my case and return of my funds and that I was no longer going to commit hours trying to communicate with Truist to resolve this issue when the organization was clearly not reciprocating effort or demonstrating any progress. I told her to have someone contact me with an update from the account manager and that my patience with the past process of spending hours on the phone with Truist representatives had been fully exhausted. I received another voicemail later that day from XXXX XXXX leaving the same inaccurate callback number with no additional information despite my very clear conversation with XXXX XXXX that I would no longer continue to follow the same process. 

XX/XX/XXXX I hand delivered the attached letter to a Truist representative at a local branch asking her to review it and communicate back to me within 5 business days. I received no response to this letter, resulting in my efforts to alert the CFPB and request help recovering my funds.

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