Complaint Review: Huntington National Bank - Columbus, Aurora Ohio

Many states, like Ohio, have laws to channel money from accounts of the deceased to the state.  These laws date back to the time when the King owned everything.

In the case of Huntington National Bank ("Huntington" [a brand for dozens of companies]), "under state law" it reports an account as "dormant" (First step in the $$ going to the State) if you have no transaction with that account for 11 or more months and IF, and only if, 1) the account is not "linked" to an "active account;" 2) You do not have another "active" account with Huntington; or 3) you do not inquire of them about the account during that period.  Note that all three of these conditions would indicate that you are not dead. 

ALL three conditions that bar dormant status apply to our money market account in question: 1) it IS  linked to an active (checking) account; 2)I and my wife HAVE written to Huntington and telephoned them multiple times about the account after the false claim that has become "dormant": and 3) we HAVE other active accounts with Huntington.  So, one could reasonably conclude that we are not dead yet.

You are not allowed by Huntington to communicate with the "dormant accounts department" which is driving this lash-up - only with the utterly clueless "customer service representatives," who do not even understand the issue, much less have reasoned answers.  And, no, they will not transfer your call to someone who can rationally discuss the matter.

Huntington ignores everything you point out and grinds on down the path to, untimately, sending your money to the State.  It is as if you WERE dead, and they do not listen to ghosts.

Just after we received the initial "dormant account" notice (Unsigned email.  No return mail address.  Email replies not allowed.  Entity sending not identified), the local Huntington branch Manager assured me, face-to-face,  that we could ignore that notice because, "obviously,": the account was not "dormant" for the reasons set out above.  In the almost two months after I pointed out his assurances in one of my letters to Huntington, he utterly ceased to be available to speak to me by telephone or in person. (I do hope he did not get in trouble for being right.)

Even in response to the federal banking authorities (the useless Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) the only communication from Huntington was from a PR type who mindlessly repeat the conclusory, "The above-mentioned [account]... is in an inactive status...."-  ignoring the several reasons why it is not dormant under Huntington's published practices or the state statute  (ORC 165.01).  (Self hypnosis?)(Is ,"inactive" other than "dormant" or does the writer simply not know the terminology?)

Huntington is too arrogant to listen.  To Huntington, the customer is always wrong or hopelessly incompetent.  

Cute commercials, however.

We closed the account before they could send our money to the State.  Guess we are alive after all, reports of our deaths being exaggerated and all that.