In July, my husband cashed a savings bond at our then bank, Fifth Third, on Alex Road in West Carrollton, Ohio. He deposited the entire amount into our Fifth Third checking account.in February, we filed our 2002 federal taxes using the 1099 that Fifth Third sent us and we paid taxes on the interest that the savings bond earned.
On June 20, we received a letter in the mail from Fifth Third stating that although their company strived to serve their customers well, "errors sometimes occur." Then below the body of the letter, it stated that a deposit made in July was incorrect and a debit had been made to our account in the amount of $1100. It did not say what the error was or why the money had been deducted from our account several days before we received this letter.
We checked our records and realized that the deposit in question was the cashed savings bond. We called the 1-800 number given in the letter, but the customer service representative told us that we would have to go to our local branch because she had no record of why the debit had occurred.
The following day I went to the branch where we cashed and deposited the savings bond. I spoke to a manager (Ms. Brenneman), who explained that the IRS must have let the bank know that they had overpaid us and that Fifth Third "had to get their money back." She also scoffed at the idea that this particular bond would've earned so much interest, as if I should've known same.
I explained that I did not work at a bank, so I was not familar with how much interest bonds earn. I also told her that we had already paid taxes on the interest we had earned 11 months earlier. Ms. Brenneman said there was "nothing she could do about it" but she would find out if we would be receiving an adjusted 1099 form for the next tax year. I gave her copies of all the paperwork I had, along with my phone number, and I never heard from her again.
My husband went to a different Fifth Third branch to try and find a better explanation. He spoke to Karen, a manager at the Springboro Pike branch, who also took our phone number. Karen did call, but only to let us know that she was still looking for information on an adjusted 1099.
Fifth Third was at fault for incorrectly computing the interest that a savings bond earned. How can Fifth Third come back 11 months after a mistake and take $1100 out of our account without warning? Why is there no statute of limitations on how long a bank has to rectify its mistakes?
Why do customers have to pay for mistakes a bank made 11 months prior? What would have happened if we had cashed the bond instead of depositing it? We had to wait 9 months to receive credit for the taxes we paid for Fifth Third's error.
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