Bank of Montreal [BMO] review: Total lack of communications with customer.

I became a BMO customer as a result of the Bank of the West merger. I was with Bank of the West and it's predecessor for over 30 yrs and had no problems with them. I have been with BMO now for 24 days and I estimate I have well over 100 hours invested in trying to get 2 very simple problems resolved. First my "BMO Profile" was put on hold because my Bk of the West password did not meet BMO's requirements for a password, so when the accounts were transferred , the system automatically locked the profile. Did anyone notify me of the problem? Of course not... They let me figure it out for myself. I called either BMO or the local branch office probably 15 times before a 'problem resolution specialist' was smart enough to uncheck a box on the computer to free up my profile.

My second problem was eerily simillar to the first problem, only this time it involved my Zelle profile. While I was with Bk of the West a hacker got into my home computer and set up a Zelle transfer from my acct to his for $499. I was able to see what he was doing on my computer screen and prevented him from completing his transaction. This was reported to the FBI, but I was forced to close that account and open a new one, which took hours to notify all company's involved in direct deposit/withdrawal.

This was all resolved prior to the BMO merger, but since there was a record of fraudulent activity on my old account, the new acct. in BMO had the Zelle acct. profile put on hold. I have been trying to get that profile's hold released since the day I found it. Again, nobody from BMO bothered to let me know about the hold or why it was put on. I had to figure that out by myself.

It's been 25 days now, with countless wasted hours on the phone, and no one has the authority to remove the hold. I'm still fighting the battle. Just today I asked a 'problem resolution specialist' to escalate the problem to the managerial level. I'm supposed to receive a call from a manager 'within 24 to 48 business hours.' We'll see.