My husband and I have been loyal customers with Wachovia for quite a few years now. During that time we have used online banking to pay our bills. This issue does not have anything to do with billers who have been authorized by us as account holders to automatically debit our account on a specific day during any given month.
This issue deals directly with the bills we have selected to pay through Wachovia by selecting a day or days, one time or recurring and the amount. During our initial time with Wachovia, if money was not available in the associated account to pay an online bill, then an e-mail was sent to us telling us that a payment was attempted but the funds were not available. Two additional payment attempts would be made, after which the payment would have to be resubmitted.
Now, because we are loyal customers, Wachovia pays everything, even if the funds are not available. On the surface, this would appear to be of great benefit to us as customers. But here in lies the rub; Wachovia pays the largest amounts first under the guise they are doing us a favor as large amounts are, in the words of a customer service representative, often more important payments. This policy, also in the words of the customer representative, is relatively new.
In fact we have Quicken and bank statements showing that the small ones were paid first in the past, thus indicating that Wachovia has made a conscious business decision to collect additional service charges from its customers. Even though Wachovia historically pays all of the amounts, paying the largest ones first enables Wachovia to charge an additional $30 service charge for each small one that exceeds available funds. Often the results are disastrous.
If Wachovia had continued historical policy of paying the smaller amounts first, customers would still reap the benefits, but without the penalty of excessive service charges (Please review the example below).
For example; assume that the following payments were due to process on a given evening: $2000.00, $150.00, $35.00, $15.00, and $20.00. For the purposes of this example, assume that there is $1200.00 in the account when these payments are due to process.
If Wachovia were to pay the smaller amounts first (as they have historically), the $150.00, $35.00, $15.00 and $20.00 charges would all be paid with the available balance, and the customer would be charged one $30.00 service charge for the $2000.00 amount due to insufficient funds. The net customer penalty in this case is $30.00.
However, under the new policy of paying the more important payments first, the $2000.00 amount would be paid out first, resulting in a $30.00 service charge due to insufficient funds. Then all of the other amounts would be paid by Wachovia, resulting in four additional $30.00 service charges due to insufficient funds. The net customer penalty in this case is $150.00.
Wachovias guidelines on what posts and what does not post, what funds are available and what funds are not available are definitely not included in the Balance Update emails that a customer can request. And, as indicated in the above example, they are definitely not in the best interest of the customer.
For example, we have a Balance Alert e-mail dated 2/13 at 4:54: 24 AM Eastern Standard Time. The e-mail indicates that we are overdrawn by $710. However, the Wachovia website shows (at 7:00 AM EST, that we have several thousand dollars available.in fact, the funds are so available that we can transfer the funds to one of our other accounts as needed.
That being said, Wachovia claims they are trying to make our money management easier. But it appears that we, as customers, need to look at our Balance Alerts, check book registers, sign in online and maybe even call to see what is actually available for us to use? If that is not playing games with our money than I am not sure what is.
Wendy
Northern VA, Virginia
U.S.A.
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