I have read the reports and rebuttals on this site regarding Bank Of America's NSF policies. I have suffered at their hands as well. But despite all the arguements regarding keeping your check register up to date, responsibility of the consumer, blah, blah, blah... My issue is not with the fact that they charged me for being overdrawn.
No... My problem with it is this: I put several hundred thousand dollars through my account each year and all of my employess have their accounts with B of A as well. We annually put around a million dollars in their bank.
Last week I inadvertantly used my debit card instead of my credit card to pay for some hotel stays. I overdrew my account by about $150. As soon as I realized it, I transferred some money to try to bring it to the positive. Unfortunately, a number of small PayPal charges were also pending and I feared that the approaching weekend would put my chance of covering the overdraft charges into a limbo until Monday.
I incurred almost $900 in overdraft charges as I tried to post funds to the account in the first couple of days (I should mention I was out of town and the only way I could get funds into the account was through online transfers from available online accounts. I was not allowed to transfer funds from those other accounts I have because either they were not linked (for various B Of A reasons) and/or you can only have one account for transferring purposes. I had to put money into a friend's account and then have him do a transfer to my account. The overdraft fees were making everything that came in bounce, including a number of automatic payment items that I could not stop including my phone bill and auto insurance.
My issue is not that I received a penalty fee for overdrawing the account. It is that they processed the debit items largest to smallest.
All of the items that received overdraft fees should not have incurred them except for the one that caused all of this in the first place. All of the items processed (incluing the PayPal items) were under $15 except for the BAD one of $298.
At the time of the transactions there was plenty enough money to pay for all but that one in the account. Only the largest item was not covered by funds in the account.
So... I was charged $900 worth of overdraft charges instead of $35. I immediately put $1150 dollars in the account (on Saturday) but that was eaten up by the forthcoming charges so that as several automatic payments came in on the weekend they all received overdraft charges as well.
I tried to make another online transfer but it was after the cutoff time and didn't get posted until Monday after all the other items were processed. Before I got to the bank other items came in and were overdrafted as well giving me a whopping $1400 in overdraft charges when in reality I was only overdrawn with one item to begin with me.
So... To all those who will argue that I should keep better track of my register, I say it doesn't matter. I knew what was in there, I had the money to cover my spending in other accounts, and should I really be paying $1400 on a $298 debit that they 'covered'? After all, the only reason other items were in the red was because of the overdraft fees that started piling up because of the way they processed the debits (largest to smallest) and because of the fact that I couldn't make the money transfers fast enough to keep up with the incoming charges they were putting on my account over the weekend.
And why do those fees get credited to my account immediately, but what I deposit doesn't happen until the next day?
Also I want to know why they charged me a $35 fee on each PayPal item when PayPal actually processed them all at once, in one fell swoop.
Say what you wnat, but this is wrong... I am on my way to close all of my B Of A accounts and will advise my crew to do the same. You guys can rebuttal all you want. It is unethical to charge the overdraft fees that keep occuring as they hit the bank and causing everything else that comes in to be charged as well.
I'm going to start keeping my money under the mattress...
Ken
Duarte, California
U.S.A.
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