Tong remains unhappy with M&T

Four months after merger with People’s United, part of AG’s staff still assigned to customer issues

Four months after M&T Bank’s troubled conversion of accounts from People’s United Bank — and nearly 400 complaints later — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong says he remains generally dissatisfied with the Buffalo-based bank.

“Frankly, my frustration level remains high,” Tong said in an interview with the Courant. “We’re working on this every single day, and, frankly, the bank continues to have issues.”

Tong said he considers the 399 complaints filed with his office since Labor Day when the conversion took place a particularly large number. A portion of Tong’s staff remains assigned to working with M&T to resolve customer problems, Tong said.

“For an institution this big, with the resources that M&T has and for the issues to persist and not be resolved is not satisfactory and unacceptable,” Tong said.

Of the 399 complaints received by Tong’s office as of last week, all but 20 had been resolved, according to a Tong spokeswoman.

Tong did credit M&T with being responsive to working to resolve complaints coming into the attorney general’s office on a case-by-case basis. But Tong said he remains concerned about such issues as customers having difficulty accessing accounts when they have power of attorney for an account holder or are a guardian or trustee.

“They’re not able to do that,” Tong said. “And that’s not good. And then, now we are seeing a real uptick, which has been there all along, in people who find their money deposited into the wrong account.”

M&T, which acquired Bridgeport-based People’s United last spring for $8.3 billion, touched off an uproar after the Labor Day conversion among former People’s United customers, some unable to access their funds. The troubles quickly garnered the attention of Tong and other elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and drew an apology from M&T and a pledge to waive account or reimburse late fees for

customers who experienced disruptions.

“We have worked diligently to support any impacted customers and regain their trust, including waiving consumer checking and savings fees, and late fees for consumer and mortgage loan payments,” an M&T spokesman said, in a statement. “While losing even one customer is too many, we are confident in the strong retention rates of former People’s United customers, and are focused on the future in Connecticut.”

Tong said he has yet to meet with M&T chief executive Rene F. Jones, despite several requests. But M&T said the bank has had 23 meetings with the attorney general’s office since the conversion. Those meetings, M&T said, included a team of executive leadership from M&T who met with the attorney general’s senior staff, as recently as last month.

By the bank’s count, M&T said there were less than 10 customer service issues, as of Jan. 4, relayed by the attorney general’s office. All complaints get a response within 10 days, as required by Tong’s office, so none are past due, M&T said. In addition, M&T contends, complaint levels to the bank and to its regulators are at historically normal levels.

M&T did not disclose details on the extent of fees that were waived or reimbursed to inconvenienced customers.

M&T also said the number of complaints fielded by Tong’s office are miniscule — less than 0.1% of all M&T customers in Connecticut following the merger.

‘Keeping a close eye on them’

Among customers, who experienced disruptions in the conversion, there appeared this week to be some moderation in their upset.

“It was exasperating,” Paul Altieri, a longtime People’s United customer in New Britain. said, recalling the disruption after Labor Day. “It was difficult and, you know, I figured it was going to be a problem, but I was willing to give them time to get this straightened out.”

It took a week but Altieri said he was able to get access to his savings and checking accounts. Those accounts remain at M&T, though Altieri said he was tempted to close them and is still in a “wait-and-see” period to determine if he will remain a long-term customer.

However, Altieri’s problems with a third account ran deeper, one that was tied to his role as executor for his deceased brother’s estate. He couldn’t get online access and the only way he could get a sense of activity in the account was if he went to a branch and got a print out. The problem with that was, the print out would be out of date the next day, Altieri said.

“The account was there, I just couldn’t get access to it,” Altieri said. “I had no idea what was clearing, what was coming in, what was going out. I couldn’t tell unless I physically went to the bank to find out.”

Altieri said he gave M&T a month to fix the problem, but he ultimately moved the account to another bank.

“The whole thing was crazy, and it should not be like that,” Altieri said. “I gave it a whole month, and they still weren’t able to do it. And that’s a real problem.”

In Glastonbury, Donald Kray has been a depositor at People’s United and a string of predecessor banks for decades.

The conversion created a couple of headaches for Kray, a retired Aetna employee who worked in the insurer’s IT operations. The largest problem was the trouble M&T had connecting Kray’s Quicken software on his desktop computer directly with the other banks where Kray has business.

Kray said he talked with one M&T employee in Buffalo about the issue. As a result of multiple conversations that also drew on Kray’s background in IT, the bank was able to solve the problem.

Kray praises those efforts — he’d even go so far as to call the employee a friend now — but overall, Kray says, the execution of the conversion was poorly handled. At Aetna, Kray said the insurer took over claim payments from other companies.

“And it wasn’t easy,” Kray said. “Those were more like unique activities. This should not have been — bigger banks take over smaller banks all the time.”

Kray said he is staying with M&T, but he will continue daily online monitoring of his accounts, something he routinely did even before the M&T takeover.

“I will be keeping a close eye on them,” Kray said.