On June 1, National City Bank changed its online check processing. National City represents that one of the primary changes is that the date provided by its customers for an online payment is no longer the date that the bank disburses payments; and, that under the change, the date provided with an online payment is the date the consumer wants the payment to arrive at the payee.
At the moment a customer authorizes payment using the National City online banking program, that program evaluates the payee vis—vis payees in the banks database, what transmittal methodmail, electronic funds transfer, etcand when to start processing the payment so that the payment arrives to the payee on the date specified by the customer; then, the processing period is returned as a number to the customerfor example, 5, which would indicate that the payment would take five days to process. This sounds simple and straight forward. Any reasonable person can understand this change.
I am a reasonable person. However, the bank is not acting reasonably or responsibly in the way some payments are handled: In some cases and under certain, buggy circumstances, the bank's online program changes the processing period after a payment been sent by the online customer; after, the processing period has been returned to the customer; without disclosing to the customer that the processing period for that payment has changed.
This results in funds being disbursed not on the date provided by the customer in the payment authorization; but, several days earlier than that reported to the customer.
Apparently, when the National City online banking program cannot recognize a payee as stipulated in a payment, it defaults to a 5 day processing period, which is then returned as 5 to the customer. The online banking program can never recognize a payee by it's name and address when returning the processing period to the customer; but, it always recognizes the payee by name and address when the online program prepares to disburse and process payments; then, changes the processing period resulting in funds being dispersed days earlier than planned.
National City Bank must be making a ton of money on the NSF's generated by their bug. The fine print in the legal disclosures does address the bug. However, the fine print is in direct contradiction to the large print which stipulates that the customer provides the date that the payment should arrive at the payee's address. How can this be legal? It is certainly a rip-off. Can you spell c-l-a-s-s a-c-t-i-o-n?
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