Can we fight back the overdraft fees ?

[suki]

Hi All,

Just got off the phone with bank of America (BOA) I am not a happy camper!

Here's the story. Sorry for the long details but want you to get the picture of what happened:

My father was gravely ill during the week of the New Year holiday and landed in the ICU . Both my parents are elderly folks. My father is in a nursing home. My mother does not drive.

I wrote out a check for 350.00 on Saturday and mailed it out of state off in a hurry to meet the deadline, but because I was so strung out with the family going in and out of nursing home and ICU with the discussion of funeral plans etc, I could not remember which account I wrote the check on. I guess I was having a senior moment at that time...which drive me nuts!

I then realized this problem on Tuesday and called the bank, explained and spoke to them face to face with Citizen because I was not sure if I had used that account. Citizen does not have pending transactions like BOA does. I did not have enough money to cover both accounts. There is also a penalty fee for so many times you can withdraw money from this account... sigh!

To make the long story short I watched like a hawk for the check to come thru with the pending transaction that always appears and the alert would also warn you if the balance was under a certain amount. This feature gives you until 11:45 PM on that to make the adjustments. Also at Citizen you had til 7 PM to put in cash. So I felt I had this under control....

So I watched it all day to catch the check to make sure the BOA savings account attached to it would draw it automatically...if it did not work then the pending transaction warning would allow me to manually transfer the money from savings to checking...well it never showed up and I printed out the daily transactions just in case. The next morning the alert came out with a lower balance warning. The email was sent out at 2:30 AM in the morning. when I opened my online account I found the check came in overnight but never showed it under pending transaction! It also never alerted me that I was below zero balance! I received two overdrawned fees of $33 each totaling $66.00 I quickly transfered the money from my savings to checking to cover all fees with a small left over positive balance.

I called BOA and spoke with a nice gal (I took her name down). I explained my circumstances of the check I was trying take care of and my emergency crisis with my family. (My family doctor can attest to this) She looked up the account and said she could not see any other problems than my transfered amount that was just made, no $350 check and no overdrawn fees. I asked for a fax nbr to send her the proof that that my online banking was showing a negative and also the other print out between January 8 and January 9 not showing true information for me to control my balances as I was lead to believe. she said they did not have a fax nbr to give out...

She said that absolutely if the online banking failed to show this check under pending transactions, and because the saving was not attached:shock:, as well I was not able to transfer savings to checking with the pending transaction info it was a valid reasons to believe that I should have not gotten those fees because of that check I also told her there were six other transactions before the check but I had enough money to cover those the day before;however, the following day with this check popping up without warning it showed with the 2 overdrawn fees!

She said she would make a notation and refund the 2 fees that are showing on my online now and take care of any future fees that were caused by the check Well I was very relieved...until I saw that the refund of the first two fees had not happened.. I called again and spoke with a rep, but the rep said they could not do anything because "it was already entered in the system" For whatever that meant... then I asked for the supervisor, the supervisor then she gave me the drill about "not the bank's fault, there was no valid reason for refunding the fees"!...UUUGGGRRRRHHHHH!

Got another supervisor on the phone, this time she was willing to contact the nice gal that wrote in the notations about refunding these fee from the check that caused it in the first place. She said at the end of the day it will all be taken care of... I asked again "will all the fees be taken care from this check that caused it" ?(she was irritated from the relay call as it takes a long time to communicate) and quickly said "yes, yes," and hung up.

Well today was my first day off from work and could follow up with the BOA as the refunds for the five remaing fee of $165 have not be refunded as promised. The rep could not do anything cause "it was in the system" and the supervisor could not do anything as there was no manager or an escalate (spelling?) person to help me today. What made matters worst was that the rep gave the supervisor wrong info and told her I wanted to put a stop payment on this check... What the heck????? I was livid! I asked for the CEO of BOA and would put a complaint in with proof to show that the online banking made several errors and prevented me from transfering my savings to checking! She said she did not have any info to anyone that could help me other then to call monday morning... I can't take time off for this.... Grrrr. I already have FLMA for my parents several weeks ago!

I was also told that I would have to be in Florida to open a savings account that could be attached to this checking account in order for it to be a overprotection draft feature!!!!! The savings account that I opened at BOA here does not help at all! You would have to get a credit card attached to your account to draw automatically to avoid overdraft fees! That's like cash advance withdrawal OUCH!!!!!

What in the world is happening here with the banking systems today???? It feels like that banks are all crooks! Why are they getting rid of good features that help people control their money more...????

So what I need to know now will the CEO of BOA be helpful? How can I reach him or her ?

Thanks for any input here and my apologies for a long story....

Take care.

Suki

[Gibson]

See my posting under Wachovia just below. It may take a little digging, but you can probably find the CEO or board of directors of BOA and start sending emails.

[suki]

See my posting under Wachovia just below. It may take a little digging, but you can probably find the CEO or board of directors of BOA and start sending emails.

Hi Gibson,

Thank you Gibson! I did see your post but didn't make the connection to my situation, I did write a complaint letter at Plantfeedback.com but did not want to go public on it... will that be a problem?

Thanks so much again for replying and giving such a wonderful suggestion!

Take care.

Suki

[janedoe2]

Suki,

If I am understanding everything correctly it sounds like the first rep you spoke with did not check the rejected items screen.If she did it would have shown there and the fee that was about to hit that night. Your balance would not reflect anything at this time. The next morning is another story! The reason you did not see the check in your pending transactions is because it does not show up until after midnight. All electronic items show in "real" time throughout the day, but paper checks come in after midnight. At that time BofA will pay your highest transactions first then go down the line. This is why people get stuck with several NSF fees instead of one. The rep will say something like,"most of the time larger items are the most important ones like your mortgage or car payment And/Or it is your responsibility to ensure you have funds available to cover any checks you have written. We have no knowledge of paper checks until they are received between midnight and 6 am for proccessing."

The Cust Serv Rep then transferred you to a Team Lead (not a manager) which means same duties but higher limits. The CSR and TL have managers. The CSR manager trumps the TL. If you get nowhere in the call center(which employs hundreds of people) req Customer Solutions. Keep in mind it is BofA policy to not refund fees unless bank error. Which means most fees are not refunded. If you have no NSF's in the last rolling 12 months you stand a fair chance of getting them reversed.Also since the first rep actually noted the acct (rare) you have a great chance as well. Every manager can refund at their descretion. Be sure to ask for the survey at the end of every call! They do go directly to upper management. After you go throught the survey it gives you the option to speak, this even gets forwarded to the rep and the manager. Call again,ask for the reps manager not a team lead. Also state that you were told that your savings was setup for overdraft protection so none of this should have happened in the first place. Don't cuss or they will notate the account not to reverse fees...and yes,they got a pretty penny out of me too.

Hope this helps.

[LNY]

Janedoe2, thank you for the informative post, and welcome to the forum!

[suki]

Suki,

If I am understanding everything correctly it sounds like the first rep you spoke with did not check the rejected items screen.If she did it would have shown there and the fee that was about to hit that night. Your balance would not reflect anything at this time. The next morning is another story! The reason you did not see the check in your pending transactions is because it does not show up until after midnight. All electronic items show in "real" time throughout the day, but paper checks come in after midnight. At that time BofA will pay your highest transactions first then go down the line. This is why people get stuck with several NSF fees instead of one. The rep will say something like,"most of the time larger items are the most important ones like your mortgage or car payment And/Or it is your responsibility to ensure you have funds available to cover any checks you have written. We have no knowledge of paper checks until they are received between midnight and 6 am for proccessing."

The Cust Serv Rep then transferred you to a Team Lead (not a manager) which means same duties but higher limits. The CSR and TL have managers. The CSR manager trumps the TL. If you get nowhere in the call center(which employs hundreds of people) req Customer Solutions. Keep in mind it is BofA policy to not refund fees unless bank error. Which means most fees are not refunded. If you have no NSF's in the last rolling 12 months you stand a fair chance of getting them reversed.Also since the first rep actually noted the acct (rare) you have a great chance as well. Every manager can refund at their descretion. Be sure to ask for the survey at the end of every call! They do go directly to upper management. After you go throught the survey it gives you the option to speak, this even gets forwarded to the rep and the manager. Call again,ask for the reps manager not a team lead. Also state that you were told that your savings was setup for overdraft protection so none of this should have happened in the first place. Don't cuss or they will notate the account not to reverse fees...and yes,they got a pretty penny out of me too.

Hope this helps.

Hi Janedoe2,

Wow, this is very good, it should be a sticky for overdraft fee information!

I followed Gibson's post, but nothing happened, however I found time today to go down the bank. The manager was great. She found that the phone log notes were miscommunicated. She reversed all the overdraft fees of $165.

I was very grateful and learned a few things.

Written checks are never in the pending status, it just goes through after midnight like you said.

Also, Savings acct that are attached to checking account for draft protection have to be opened in the same state as the checking acct.

So today was school day for me and hopefully if I get a chance to fly down to Florida this winter I plan to do open a savings acct to my checking acct while I get tan!

Thanks again Janedoe2, it was a super post and welcome aboard!!!

Take care

Suki

[janedoe2]

You are welcome and Thank you

Congrats on the fee reversals!!

Once you do get the savings open make sure you ask how long the funds have to be in the acct before they are able to be used for overdraft protection. I know it used to be a 2 day wait before any savings deposit could be transferred out but things change fast with BofA. Also remember they have this wonderful thing called "interstate transaction". This basically means if you make a deposit in a state other than the one the acct was opened in it can take up to 2 business days for it to post and become available. My acct is in Ca and I am in Wa now but my deposits are available the next morning. The teller still tells me up to 2 days though. Last I knew BofA systems were split: Ca own grid, Wa & Idaho own grid, all the rest lumped together. I don't know if this makes a difference or not.

[suki]

Hi Janedoe2,

I will watch out for that, in the mean time when I open my savings acct in FL; hopefully soon, I will watch out for that situation. Good thing to know.

Thanks again and take care.

Suki