I am writing to express my extreme frustration over the treatment that I have received from my bank, GreenPoint Bank. My primary complaint is that GreenPoint bank preys on its customers and uses excessive fees to profit from the mistakes that customers make. Apparently I was mistaken in assuming that banks profited from the services and opportunities that they offered their members, not their errors and lapses.
From 01/06/05 to 01/10/05 I made the mistake of going over my balance while using the debit feature of my GreenPoint debit card. This happened 8 times, often for transactions as low as one or two dollars. This was clearly my mistake and I take full responsibility for it, even though my past experience with debit transactions has been that when there are not enough funds in an account a transaction will not go through. After seeing my statement I realized that instead GreenPoint let these transactions proceed and charged me an exorbitant fee each time, no matter how small the purchase.
In fact, my non-sufficient funds fees totaled $240.00. This is ridiculous and angers me because of the size of my purchases; for the most part I was purchasing a bagel, a candy bar, or some soda. For trying to spend a handful of dollars I was charged $240.00? To me that is the very definition of excessive and unfair. I do not believe that GreenPoint was correct in profiting so much from my mistakes and I would like the majority of the fees to be refunded and placed back in my checking account. Because of all the frustration and anger that this has caused me I have refused to use my GreenPoint account since then and if we cannot come to a satisfactory agreement I will close my account.
Much of my disappointment comes from the many unfortunate experiences that I have had trying to contact their representatives in the hopes of resolving this matter. I called their customer service line and I was told that they could not help me and that I must go to a bank. However, going to a branch is difficult because they are so scarce and they keep hours that are so inconvenient to those of us that work a normal business day of 9 am to 5 pm. When I did make time to travel to a branch I was told by the manager that he could not help me in this matter and that I had to go to my branch, where I had opened the account.
However, he did give me a rather confusing account statement to take with me. When I was finally able to reach my branch in Greenpoint, Brooklyn I politely asked to have my statement explained to me since it showed insufficient fund fees being taken out of my account when the statement showed that I did have more than enough money. If the statement was inaccurate or did not reflect my true balance, well that raises other issues. Why would a bank not give its customers an accurate account summary? The staff at the bank was unable to figure out my statement or explain these discrepancies and they proceeded to pour over it in a small huddle.
I was never given an explanation and I was told I could only contest my fees with a bank manager, but there was not one there at the time. This occurred on three separate dates, each time I rushed over there from work hoping for some kind of resolution but I was horribly disappointed each week.
Finally, on my fourth attempt I was asked to wait while they tried to look for a manager. After a few minutes an Assistant Manager came down some stairs and I was ready to politely talk over my situation and hopefully come to some form of agreement. This woman was Jasmine Leguillow, and unfortunately she seemed to have had something else in mind. She came out guns blazing and was belligerent from the start of our conversation, interrupting me and appearing angry.
I was shocked; the worst I expected was to be given some double talk and calmly told that I couldn't be helped. The one thing I must thank Ms. Leguillow for is her honesty since she told me an awful truth behind the bank's practices. First, I expressed my concern that their fees were grossly out of proportion to how far I had overspent, after all their philosophy of $30.00 in fees for even a penny over is obviously excessive. I then told her that I felt the bank was seeking to profit off of my mistakes, which I consider a serious allegation.
I was shocked to hear her agree with meshe said plainly and without blinking that GreenPoint did make its money from customer's mistakes. I was stunned by her admission and saw no point in continuing the conversation.
That was my final attempt to contact GreenPoint Bank, but on 04/11/05 I saw a story on the CBS Evening News dealing with this very issue. This nationally televised segment described my exact situation and detailed the surprise and anger that many customers feel when they see that their banks have taken advantage of them with grossly excessive fees.in fact, the report revealed that out of 35 billion dollars in annual profits, 11 billion consisted of these fees. Nearly a third! The fact that a respected national news organization devoted its valuable time to this important issue has inspired me to once again seek a satisfactory conclusion.
Preying on customers is no way to inspire confidence and create an atmosphere of trust.in a bank I want somebody that I feel safe giving my money to, this is not how I currently feel about GreenPoint Bank.
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