As many might be faimliar, banks make some of their profit off of miscellaneous fees such as overdraft/NSF fees and so forth. The majority of the money is made via investors and financial investments. Unfortunately, for the consumer, Midsouth Bank seems to make their money by charging exorbitant NSF fees.
I have dealt with banks in the past. They were always willing to work with me when there were diputes on my statement. Midsouth is not so helpful. After all, if they help me get these fees off of them, then how can they continue to be the profiteering gluttons that they are.
I contacted Midsouth in regards to some NSF fees. I explained that I tried contacting the individual companies that done the automatic debit. I was told by the companies that they could not stop the software from doing an automated draft (sounds odd to me).
Midsouth never responded. I finally received a letter stating that if I did not pay all of the money owed to them, that they (Midsouth) would turn the matter over to a collection agency. Well, I once again responded to the matter as I had done before. Still, no resopnse.
I found out that they did turn the matter over to ChexSystems. That's what most banks use to see if you have any outstanding balances at other banks. I obtained my ChexSystems report.
At the same time I requested my ChexSystems report, I filed a complaint with the BBB. After a couple months, still no response from Midsouth. I received a letter from the BBB letting me know they had not received a response from Midsouth (which was not suprising).
I sent in a dispute letter to ChexSystems with a copy of the letter from the BBB stating that Midsouth had still not responded to their letter.
A few days after I sent the ChexSystems dispute letter out, I receive a message on my answering machine stating that they had sent the first letter out to the wrong address and that they were sending another one out to Midsouth.
I did receive a response from Midsouth, however, it was not one of wanting to "resolve" anything. The response was from Mr. Christopher Levanti, S.V. P, c.C. O, Credit Administrator. He is from the main office in Lafayette, LA:
MidSouth Bank
P.O. Box 3745
Lafayette, LA 70502
800-213-RANK
The tone of Mr. Levanti was that of a snobby individual that looks down on people. Defiantely not a person that should be in a customer-related field. I feel his attitude is more along the lines of a mortition that does not have to deal with the public. Mr. Levanti tried to paint the picture that I am a malicious customer trying to abuse Midsouth bank's service.
One of his responses was the following:
... It seems that he had no intention of closing the account or any issues as several debit card transactions at different food chains, as well as Wal-Mart, Gas facilities, etc cleared."
I responded to this in a letter to the BBB with the following statement, "If I would have known the account was overdrawn, I would not have even attempted the transactions.in addition, how could I close the account? The account was in a negative balance because of numerous fees that MidSouth charges.in order to close out the account, I would have had to pay out the exorbitant fees to put the account at a zero balance."
Another statement mad by Mr. Levanti was, The customer should have put stop payments on any items he did not want to come through his account as most of our present customers do and then the item is returned with no fees attached.
My response, "At the time, I was having financial difficulties.in order to put a stop payment on a transaction, there is a $30.00 fee per stop payment. Therefore, one of the transactions was around $9.00 or so. I would be paying a fee literally three times the amount of the transaction to stop. I had contacted the individual companies about stopping the transactions, however, they stated that their billing software was automatic and there was nothing they could do."
His comment seemed to be that of a cocky executive officer. As I explained to the BBB, I do not feel that this matter is settled in the least bit. Mr. Levanti offered no resolution in any fashion.
I highly advise anyone to stay away from Midsouth bank. If you do end up with problems with Midsouth, you CAN NOT depend on their resolution department. After all, they have this one cocky individual as the Senior Vice President. As for CCO, I'm not sure which one that will stand for:
Chief Compliance Officer
Chief Customer Officer
In any case, though, he does not act in a professional manner than one whom deals with customer issues.
Finally, as the Credit Administrator. Well, it seems that he has his hands in all the positions that deal directly with customer problems, however, he decides to treat them like dirt. Does he think that by using intimidation customers will just "pay up" so Midsouth can continue to be profiteering gluttons.
The only ones above him would be the VP and President/CEO of the company. However, I doubt contacting them would help. I will be contacting them, though, to let them know of this posting and of their gluttenous practices.
Furthermore, I will be fowarding this matter to the Louisiana Attorney General's Office.
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