Fifth Third Bank

Fifth Third Bank 5/3rd, 5/3rd Bank, Fifth Third Bancorp, 5/3rd Bancorp Can't Be Trusted With My Money Cincinnati, Ohio

19th of Sep, 2011 by User339594

Here's my story : My fiance is and English citizen, and so that we may be together in America, we are in the process of applying for a Fiance Visa. This, of course, requires money...$340.00 to be exact. So, being that my fiance makes much more money than I, we decided he would front the fee and that I would pay our other bills. Before accepting a foreign check from him, since I had never deposited a foreign check before, I called my bank's customer service center. The Fifth Third assistant spoke with her supervisor, and told me that they would gladly accept a foreign deposit, so long as the amount of the check was written in dollars, rather than pounds. After repeating back to her what she told me to do, just to be sure, I hung up and waited the arrival of the check from my fiance. A week later I have the check for $340.00 in hand, and take it on 9/12/2011 to a nearby Fifth Third location, where I filled out a deposit slip, waited in line, and gave it to the teller. Very friendly she told me she had to let her supervisor handle it, and after a few minutes the supervisor tells me that while the $340.00 was written in dollars (as I had been told was the correct action), that they would have to take in in pounds - thereby making the total $517.00 once converted. After making a quick call to my fiance, we decided to just go ahead with it so that we could just get the visa application on its way. The supervisor printed out a receipt for the transaction, telling me it would be a few days before it would go through, and I left. The next day, in a pleasant surprise, the full $340.00 was posted in my account. Excited that it was such a quick turn around, I placed a personal check of $340.00 into the visa application packet, and sent it to the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday 9/15/2011. Two days later, on the morning of Saturday, 9/17/2011 - $517.00 had been taken from my account, leaving me hundreds of dollars overdrawn. Immediately I contacted Fifth Third via telephone, thinking maybe there was just some confusion, and was sure they would rectify the situation. I was told that there was nothing that could be done through the call center, and that I would have to contact the Fifth Third branch I had deposited the check with on Monday. Thinking to myself that it is ridiculous to ask a customer to go days without money, I waited until Monday and called the branch, asking for the branch manager. After filling the branch manager in to my predicament, I was told that he would investigate the issue and return my call, which was promptly received at 2:30 Monday afternoon. I was told that while the bank sympathizes with my problem, that the person who put in my deposit had done so incorrectly, and that the funds should never have been issued so quickly. The manager told me that the waiting time for an international check is 6-8 WEEKS - and I was then asked when I would be able to pay the bank back for amount I was overdrawn. Completely dumbstruck I told him that he may be surprised, but that I don't have hundreds of dollars laying around in case the bank mishandles my money - to which he replied that I would have to be FRUGAL until I could come up with it, and that other than waiting any additional overdraft fees that incur as a consequence of their mistake would be waived. Oh yes, what a courtesy they have done me. I told him I would have to think about what I could do overnight, and by the next morning I was absolutely FUMING...how dare he tell me I need to be frugal, when it was through their mistake I was to go weeks without anything. How dare he allow my life to be disrupted so, and through a bank error? I called him back and asked to speak to his direct supervisor, where he became very defensive, suggesting they were doing all they could do and that it was only out of courtesy to me that he would waive fees and monitor my account personally through this crisis. I'm not sure that I would agree that holding an umbrella over a drowning person and watching them go down is very helpful, and from my perspective, seems that he had no concept of what they had done and how it has affected me and my life. I may not be the wealthiest woman in the world, but I would like to think that my business mattered to them in some way. I pointed out to him that in the past, when I was financially irresponsible, I was held accountable by them through overdraft fees; and that now that it is the bank who has been financially irresponsible, they should reverse the past charges I was given to make up for the amount I am owed. This of course was something 'he could not do'. So finally after arguing for about 30 minutes, he spat out his supervisors phone number. After leaving a message with his supervisor and waiting several hours, I called again and was able to speak with the branch supervisor. As soon as I began describing my problem, she interjected that she had heard about me from the manager and that 'unfortunately, there's nothing we can do'. She asked me why I would spend the money so quickly after it had shown on my account, and I thought, isn't that my prerogative? Isn't it INTERESTING that money in one's account is used to spend on things. I don't know what world they are living in, but in my world, bills come due if you have money or not - and they are screwing with my life here, where they are behaving as though I am just an irrational lunatic. I can't believe how little they are willing to do for someone who was a victim of their error. I will never put another penny into Fifth Third Bank once this mess is cleared up, and I hope this serves as a warning to those who would seek to be treated by their bank as they expect us to treat them. Thanks for nothing Fifth Third.

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