Huntington Bank

I opened a checking account in early July with 3 small deposits from my online checking account at Chime bank. Chime has no branches anywhere, neither did my brokerage accounts that offered great banking/checking services when I had money to keep accounts there. I picked Huntington for the online banking application's look and feel, and when I googled Huntington branches in Colorado where I normally am, the results came up yes, and yes. True Huntington bought TCF banks but that merger was not really finished and certainly not enough for the customers to enjoy a seamless large bank with all the branches under one system and branding. Now, I've gone to back to Cambodia to aid my family there in the struggles of the Covid times.
Next for Huntington I had a cashier's check to deposit for almost $13, 000 and I wish now that I simply deposited this cashier's check at one of the other banks I use but I wanted to incorporate Huntington because there were one or two things it had that my other banks did not offer. I tried mobile deposit with the Huntington mobile app and found that I could
not exceed $5000 in one check so that left me with the deposit instructions for Huntington already written onto the check. I fed ex ‘d the check off to a branch in Ohio as per my call into customer service for deposit instructions.
The check was deposited on Monday August 2nd and funds were available on the 3rd and completely available on the 4th as per calls into the bank.
I set about electronically withdrawing the money via an online money transfer service I've used before to send money to myself while traveling internationally called Worldremit. Charges from Worldremit go through my debit card and are domestic transactions, made inside the USA, simple debit card online purchases. It was a slow process so I called customer service early on the 4th and explained that I wanted to take out about $8000 out in total today. The Huntington representative happily addressed my concern and presented me with bill pay as an option with me as the payee. I was comfortable with her suggestion, she said that the limit per transaction was something way over my needs (can't remember exactly, maybe she said $50, 000) anyway, I said $5, 000 was good for now and she stayed on the call with me until I set it all up and was comfortable with it. Within the hour after that call I went ahead and hit send and just after that within the next couple of hours I got signs that there was a problem with my new bank account with some inconsistencies with my online sign in. First, I could not log in and eventually I received a phone call from a male in the fraud department. The problem was that this man could not hear me when I spoke to him, the laptop may have just needed a restart but that was out of the question as the call was in process but I could not effectively communicate. He was saying that my account was on hold until I came into a branch and showed them my ID but he did not offer me any other way to ID myself - he wanted to know if I sent the bill pay to myself and I said yes I did send it. Basically he talked and he could not hear me - or he said he could not hear me. Later I called to get some more explanation and they gave me over to another guy that seemed to take great delight in all of this. He really did seem to enjoy my misfortune and he liked that I would be coming to Ohio because they forced me to. He was sadistic about his work and liked to mess people's lives up and it felt very strage.
So since August 4th I've been trying to sort this out myself with some help from my customer advocate Miss Anon. Although, she tends to just repeat what is said to her and lacks the spirit to upend this organization that thinks its appropriate to ask their customers to fly into Ohio for a special bank ID trip. From Colorado a trip like that would approach $500, from Cambodia with Covid and quarantines and all it might cost $4, 000.

Various people at the bank also criticized my decision to bank there at all given their actual footprint vs the projected future footprint the bank might have if it is able to consolidate its processes. I heard that the risk team did not like that I used a VOIP number not registered to my name, but no one told me VOIP numbers are no good. The number belongs to Google Voice and I am not sure how to register those numbers in my name, I understand their point but I'd listed this number for a month now with no comments. Other companies require actual mobile numbers and they fail VOIP numbers when customers try to list them. I use my google voice number because it'll work anywhere in the world

The reasons for my account hold is that Huntington was unable to verify a $5, 000 bill payment I made to myself. Well, when asked about it I said it was me! I don't know what else they want! #2 "Because we were not able to properly ID you" No one tried, they just told me they could not ID me and that I would have to go to Ohio with ID to show them and then fly back home. Crazy, no one does this with their longer distance customers in any business. There are dozens of ways to ID someone out there these days.
On the first day of this I asked the risk/fraud guy that was acting sadistic, about me granting Power of Attorney to someone to go into a branch and ID themselves and show them the POA docs so that my POA could withdraw the money and close the account. I have an older sister that does weekly commutes to a city near Southern Ohio where there are Huntington branches. The mean guy in fraud said that Huntington would not accept my POA and it has to be me that goes to show my ID. My customer advocate has only reiterated this go to your nearest branch stuff and has written me a letter saying the same.