I have read with interest the last couple of entries on BoA with interest. My problem with BoA started last weekend. Our basement flooded after we were hit with a bad thunderstorm. My husband rented a sewer snake Saturday to fix it. (This t-storm also produced a Tornado in my town!) With all this excitement going on, I just was not thinking of how my husband was paying for the sewer snake (I do the bills). I realized on Sunday that he had used our BoA debit card and I had paid the bills pretty tightly on Friday using BoA online bill pay and debit card, etc. Now our account was fine and in the positive Sunday.
(To give you some back story. We live in Ohio and we do not have BoA bank centers here. The closest is Virginia. Our choice of banks in our local area is not good in the sense of services available and/or bad customer service. I opened up accounts online with BoA because we had a credit card with them and I had noticed on thier website all they offered for services and when I would call customer service, they were always johnny-on-the-spot.)
Anyways, if I had access to a branch I could of run to the bank and deposited enough to cover this charge before everything went through. But alas I cannot, but I knew I was getting an ACH deposit on Tuesday and crossed my fingers. (Now, just to point out, I was prepared to possibly eat some fees and I do realize it was our mistake!) But here's where it gets tricky in my eyes. I was worried about this and at 4:30 AM on Tuesday morning I logged on to my account. I was so relieved because my ACH deposit was posted and no debit items had posted yet. My balance reflected this deposit and at no time was it negative. Tuesday afternoon, I checked my email. I got an email from BoA dated for Tuesday 1:50pm, informing that I had overdrafted 5 items for a total of $175 in overdraft fees. My jaw dropped to the floor. I immediatly logged onto BoA and to my shock, my deposit was there and also 8 debits. BoA had posted these debits with a Monday date and posted my ACH deposit with a Tuesday date. But these debits were not showing at 4:30am TUESDAY! I called BoA customer service, explained to the rep what I saw and that that deposit was there first. He said that even though my deposit was there first, BoA was still processing debits and had not posted them yet when I looked at my account. Now the key words here are the deposit was POSTED and the debits were NOT posted YET!
Now this was an ACH deposit whose funds were available immediatly and the bank does not dispute that. The BoA rep could not help me concerning the overdraft charges because technically they were not posted to my account yet and told me to call back Wednesday if I was disputing them. I called Wednesday and the agent I got looked into the matter, came back on the line and told me the bank did not make an error and could not reverse any of the $175 in fees. I ask to speak to a manager. The rep told me that the manager will tell you the same thing but I insisted. She put me on hold and came back on the line and told me the manager was in a meeting but would call me at 6pm eastern time. I gave her my phone number, she repeated it back correctly. I then waited and waited by my phone and never got this promised call.
Well, I emailed them Wednesday night and complained of this and received a reply on Thursday with an apology and a request for more info into my problem. I emailed them back and got a reply a few hours later that again the bank made no error and they would not refund my money.
I know that I sound silly because I do admit I made an error and was prepared to pay fees if that deposit did not make it to the bank before the debits. But I saw with my own eyes that the bank had these funds, which they admit. Maybe I am missing something, because I cannot understand how they can post a deposit on Tuesday and sometime in the hours after posting this deposit on TUESDAY, they can post debits on Tuesday then proceed to date them as posting on Monday. Maybe there is some wacky bank policy that I just don't understand.
Well, I am still trying to get these funds back but I do not feel much hope.
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