This message is directed at Commerce corporate executives. If you know someone who may take interest in customer service issues, I have identified a number of egregious operational failures within Commerce's bank system.
My issues with Commerce started in early January 2010. At that time I endured an unfortunate identity theft situation. Your online banking representative helped me navigate the issue with little complication. At that point my only complaint was that she had misrepresented the amount of time I would be without my disputed money. In hindsight, following some in-depth inquisition, I found that this money could be in dispute for up to 40 days, not 10 like I was originally quoted. This did not upset me though (despite having not a dime to my name at this time).
I later found myself at your Vandeventer branch signing paperwork and learning the process of the dispute. Upon signing the paperwork and stopping transactions on the affected account, Commerce was unable to open another account for me. Even after long consultations with "corporate phone assistance", your representatives there were unable to open another checking account for me (apparently due to a glitch in your bank's software). To add insult to injury at this point, I was told (by your representative) that I had an extremely outdated account, and that I had been unnecessarily been paying $7 a month for bill pay service I didn't need for the last 5-10 years. At that point I removed all of my money (with exception of one mortgage payment) and started a new account with National City.
As for the mortgage payment I left in the account, I had scheduled it and did not want it to be missed due to my current, unfortunate situation. I confirmed with another representative that the restrictions on my account were removed so that this automatic withdrawal could be processed. He indicated that the restrictions would be removed and the payment would go through. Despite the failure of the automatic withdrawal, I processed the payment manually through the online bill pay system. The payment went through and a check was sent.
At this point I believed I had cleared the fallout of my identity theft debacle. I was wrong. Last week I received a call from my mortgage representative stating that the Commerce check had been denied payment due to insufficient funds. Again I called the customer service line to confirm... they showed no record of a denial of payment. Upon investigating further it seems that restrictions had been placed on my account again due to the UNAUTHORIZED creation of a new checking account. Seems that when your internal accounts glitch was solved your representative proceeded to open an account for me without my knowledge. When a signature card was not returned, a hold was consequently placed on my old account... giving me absolutely no access to my money. I was then forced yesterday to take off work and manually deliver a cashiers check from my new bank account to my mortgage bank 45 minutes away.
After finally ironing out the mortgage problem, I withdrew my money from commerce and was assured that my account would be closed.... Not quite.
I am being told now that the following the "closure" of my account, fees were applied and subsequent overdraft notices have kept this issue alive...
Someone tell me. How do I escape the grips of this horrible fucking bank? read more
