Fifth Third Securities - Thomas Matug

Aug 2023

I have seldom seen such incompetence and disregard for the customer's time as I've dealt with at this bank. Instead of "a Fifth Third Better", a more appropriate slogan for this 5/3 branch would be "Five Times Worse (than any other bank)." I went to the bank to have a personal banker set up automatic payments to pay my condo assessment monthly. I had to go in several times to get this simple task done. The first time the banker did not know what a Roman Numeral was, so she kept incorrectly typing my condo association name, which contains a Roman numeral. Another banker had the nickname of the payment set up as the payee name on the printout I needed for proof that the account was set up, so it wasn't correct. It was also incorrectly not set up as a recurring payment, which I had asked for. When I went in again to have the name corrected, I was assured everything was correct. However, when I checked to see if the payment was made on the date it should have been made, the payment was shown as cancelled. When at a later date I asked a personal banker (Mr. Montgomery) why it was cancelled, he rudely told me that I had cancelled it. I told him I did not--why would I cancel a payment that I came to the bank to set up? He insisted that I cancelled it. As it turned out, the Fifth Third cancelled it erroneously when they fixed their mistake of having the wrong payee name. So frustrating to be accused of lying by a bank that won't admit their mistakes. I then visited the bank AGAIN and spoke to the branch manager, Diane Martino. By this time my payment was very close to being overdue and could not be sent to arrive in time. She and one of the personal bankers worked on it and assured me the payment would be made. I was in Diane's office for something like an hour. I explained that this was the 9th, the payment is due no later than the 10th, and it must be sent right away. I had to ask her to contact my condo management company to ensure I wouldn't be charged a late fee due to all the delays caused by FIfth Third's incompetence. I had to contact the management company to ensure that Fifth Third was doing what they said they would, since I had no reason to have faith anymore. The last straw was when I checked my condo assessment account TWELVE days after the branch manager and personal banker promised me it was all correct and payments would go out on time. Now the payment was really late, and Fifth Third NEVER SENT IT OUT. The bank employee was totally confused. Apparently everything I said in the one-hour session with her in the branch manager's office weeks earlier went right over her head. I spent another hour or so in the branch manager's office while they tried to figure out their own system and how to fix their numerous mistakes. In the end, the branch manager called me and told me to mail a check myself to make the payment. So, at least four hours and five visits to the bank resulted in me mailing a check myself and now worrying that I'll have a late fee because Fifth Third had NEVER YET correctly done what they said they would do. If they can't hand a simple transaction like setting up an automatic recurring payment without screwing it up several times, how can you trust them with anything else? I'm switching all my money out of this bank as soon as I can. When I moved some of it to another bank, they told me that a lot of customers are moving money out of Fifth Third into their bank due to the problems they experienced at 5/3. I believe it. The incompetence at this Fifth Third branch is staggering. And the rudeness of a bank employee blaming me for their mistake is unbelievably bad customer service. I asked for an apology and of course didn't receive it.