Back in May I had the worst auto work of my entire life. For the first time in my life I had to put a stop payment on a check for service (see my complaint about Eurotech in Winter Park, FL for more). I called Bank of America and told them I wanted to put a stop payment on a check for $600.00. They said it costs $30. I commented that it would be cheaper ($29) to bounce it, but paid it anyway. I was told the check would not clear. I sent a letter to the merchant and provided several pages of photos and estimates to prove the damage they did, and informed them not to deposit the check. I never heard back from them and assumed it was over. Nine months passed, and yesterday I checked my balance and saw it was $-500.00. I called the bank and was told they had accidentally cashed a check that should have been expired (after six months), that had officially been cancelled (on 5/27/05), and that should have bounced anyhow (they said it was cleared because 'I was such a good customer'). This was a Sunday and they told me they would take care of it Monday. On Monday I called the Check Fraud department and was treated extremely rudely by a man who told me that checks "never" expire, that their "stop payment" is only good for 180 days, and that they would not refund the money. He said they did not make a mistake. I went to the office and a man tried to help, but like all the friendly customer service agents who agreed the check should not have been honored, after calling a supervisor their next comment started with "Unfortunately...". They told me that technically the check did not expire after months but the stop payment had. I asked "why didn't you at least bounce it?" They said they honor the merchant before the customer. They told me I will be responsible for overdraft charges as well, and to add insult to injury, tried to sell me high-interest overdraft protection and pretended that would have solved the problem. I called them again and asked another person "how long before a check expires?" She said "six months" (probably assuming I had an old check I wanted to cash). Once they realized that their fault pended on that, suddenly they changed to "Oh, actually a check is valid for one year". This is untrue. According to the law, a bank does not have to honor any check more than 6 months old. They clearly made a series of mistakes but in the spirit of corporate profits they tried to just blame me. I have asked about 20 people "how long before a cancelled check can be cashed?". Everyone seems to think it's "never". I was told that if I had asked, they could have put a one-year stop-payment but that they didn't offer it to me for some reason. "I should have just known" they said, "it's in the agreement you signed". I was not told the $30 "stop payment" would ever expire. If I had written the check to myself for cash or gone to an ATM, do you really think they would have given me $600.00 and run my balance to $-500.00?? I paid for a stop payment, not a "delay payment". This is absurd. This rule should not be enforceable.
0 comments