arvest.com

Arvest Bank Accuses Me of Knowingly Passing a Fraudulent Check!

I got very poor customer service from the tellers and Branch Manager at the Lincoln Blvd. location in OKC in January of 2022. I think they deserve one star because they don't even realize how sorry and pathetic their customer service is. I opened both a personal and business bank account at Arvest Bank, then applied for a credit line. They turned me down for a credit line even though I had a 700 credit score. So I asked for equipment financing and they turned me down for that too. So I was at my wits end with exactly what this bank could do for me while I was transitioning my account over from another bank. The answer is exactly nothing! I deposited an out-of-state check from an online customer to see if the check would clear before I did the move for them. Low and behold, Arvest Bank accused me of knowingly depositing a fraudulent check! But that's not the worst part.After accusing me of intentionally depositing a fraudulent check that was written to me personally, Arvest Bank immediately put a hold on my account and sought to close it out! They said that I hadn't made any large deposits since opening the account, therefore it was scrutinized more than a normal deposit. So when I deposited it, they said there was no way that I didn't know the check was bad!Can anyone believe these people accused me of passing a fraudulent check when I was actually depositing it to find out if my customer was actually trying to scam me?So as soon as I told the customer what happened, he immediately blocked my number and stopped responding to me because the scam had been unveiled and this convinced me that the check was indeed fraudulent. I later found out that this is a popular scam going on Yelp where I get my move leads. So instead of Arvest Bank listening to my explanation, then trusting and advising me not to write any checks against a potential fraudulent check deposit, they gave me partial credit for it and then accused me of knowing that it was fraudulent! Needless to say I was dumbfounded by the way a so-called professional banking institution was blaming a small business customer when I knew I was doing the right thing by depositing the check and waiting to see if it was good. It was obvious that I was really checking to see if it was valid because I only tried to spend the initial $200 that they gave me partial credit for until the entire $3,850 cleared. But Arvest Bank was now accusing me!So I was not successful at trying to set up a meeting to speak with the branch manager at the Lincoln Boulevard location. In fact, she would not even speak to me. She heard the entire conversation that I had with the teller as to exactly what had happened during my transactions, but she never came out to say one word to me about how we could rectify this situation.So low and behold, when I tried to use my debit card, I found out that Arvest Bank had put both my personal and business accounts on hold pending a conversation with me. And when I called to check on it they told me that they were canceling and closing both my personal and business accounts because I deposited a fraudulent check. Since the branch manager at that time would not speak to me, one of the tellers finally came out and told me that the branch manager was waiting to get promoted or transferred so it was unlikely that I would get a chance to speak with her. This was one of the worst banking experiences if my life and I'm really surprised that no one has posted a review on Arvest Bank. I explained to the teller that I deposited the check to see if it would clear first before I moved the customer, they said "yeah right" and didn't believe me. They acted as if they wanted me to cry or keep explaining myself when there are hundreds of other banks out there that I can do business with. This is the first time that a bank has accused me of passing a fraudulent check when I was only trying to deposit it so that they could check to see if it was fraudulent! Needless to say, I went and closed my accounts out and they were trying to get me to keep explaining and apologizing for something that I didn't intend to do. I asked a few people to find out who regulates these banks so that I could let a regulatory authority look into this entire scenario with Arvest Bank, but this would be a long drawn out process that would probably get absolutely no results! Banks like Arvest know that they can treat their customers badly as if they are the ones that understand money better than anyone else. But society is starting to research the bad practices that banks have including the fractional reserve banking system that is designed to keep all of their customers poor and paying absorbent late fees and penalties to use their own money.

Date of experience: Jun 14, 2022