Fifth third bank is making a habit of stealing people's money and something needs to be done. I will be filing my own claim in small claims court unless there is an attorney interested in doing a class action suit against them. It is easy to judge someone that makes financial mistakes.
Please be aware I know some fees are justified and I don't need people pointing this out. Please keep responses limited to if Fifth Third's fees and responses are fair and reasonable considering the mistakes that I have made. Thanks! Anyway here are some of the fees I have encountered on both checking and credit cards with Fifth Third Bank.
1. It is absolutely impossible to get a 1 month only over the limit fee with a Fifth Third Credit card. Let me explain. The only way Fifth Third cards go over the limit is by their own interests charges or other fees. These are AWAYS charged the LAST day of the billing month. Purchases that would exceed the limit generally should be declined it is always just their own interest and fees that puts us over. As an example, say you have a $500 visa credit card with a balance of 475.00 for january. You make a 50.00 payment as soon as you get the statement (maybe 20 days BEFORE the due date) During the month you make additional purchases that leave you just short of your balance limit. On the last day of the month Fifth Third will charge you accrued interest. If that put you over the limit they will send out the month statement with an over the limit charge. Ok now you get the statement, suppose you pay it off in full they day you get the statement 30 days before the due date. Come the next month you will get a statement in the mail with a SECOND over the limit fee. Go ahead, call customer service and complain. They will tell you both fees are justified. You were over the limit the LAST day of the previous billing cycle and the FIRST day of the current billing cycle. Even though you were only over the limit for 2 days (thanks to their own interest) you get stuck with 2 months of over the limit fees!
2. I decided to pay off my credit card in full. The day I got the statement I paid off the amount on the bill maybe 20 days before the due date. The next month I got a bill for interest and an over the limit fee (due to the policy described in #1) Thinking I was done with the account, I didnt see the statement and was unaware I had a problem until the collection calls started. Now I owed like 80 bucks even though I had paid this account in full well before the due date. I called the collections and had a 30 minute argument, asking for supervisor after supervisor, that got me no-where. Per their request I decided to make a payment by phone. There is I think an 18.00 charge for paying by phone so I told him I wanted to be done with this, if I could make a full payment and be done with this I would do it otherwise I would just bring money to the branch. Told him I was willing to pay any interest and fees required to get this done so that I wouldn't get any more invoices. He assured me it was a full payoff. I had already closed the account as far as new purchaces a long time ago. Anyway now another invoce came with another late fee despite the rep's promise that I was making a full payoff of the account. I honestly have no idea how the late fee was calculated. To stop the bleeding I just made a 100.00 payment and figure they can refund the difference. It seems if you just pay the listed amount you will never get the balance down to 0 becuase of constantly accrewing interest.
3) this deals with Fifth Third check cards. This is definently something new too. Many gas stations will charge a $1.00 (the new gas station system will clear 50 or 100 but some still have the old system) authorization charge just to make sure you have a valid card. The actual charge will take a day or two to post. What should happen, and what used to happen, is this 1.00 charge would appear as a 1.00 pending transaction until the date that the actual transaction is posted. It then goes from pending to an actual posted item whenever Fifth Third actually paid the vendor. Now Fifth-Third is postdating the posted item to whenever that 1.00 authorization was made, so if that caused insuffiecent funds, you get a fee even if the money was there when the transaction actually went through. The way 5/3 calculates insuffiecent funds is also total BS as well. No matter WHEN the transaction was made, Fifth Third always proccesses the largest transaction of that day 1st. For example, here is what happened to me. I had about 30 bucks in my account the day before direct deposit. I made 4 small transactions totaling 20 buck and filled up my gas with just over 35.00 in gas that only had a 1.00 pending transaction. I did the 4 transactions BEFORE the gas. Everything was fine with my statement until the gas went from pending 1.00 to the actual charges that was post-dated to the day of the authorization. I've found out that Fifth Third always proccesses the largest
1st. So I incurred 150 for 5 insuffiecient funds, even though if calculated by when the transactions were actually made I should of had only 1 (at most) fee. They did waive one fee for me but claimed to be entitled to all the charged fees.
I'm sick and tired of being pushed around. I will file a small claims court suit. I believe my strongest argument is the verbal contract I entered with the collections rep that this was a full payoff of the credit card. I am going to request the r/s of that conversation through discovery. Right now I am sending a certified letter to Fifth Third with a settlement offer of $78.00 (waiver of 2 fees) and telling them to preserve that recorded conversation with the CSR if they have it. If they don't I will identify the CSR through discovery and depose him if possible. I will also request a copy of their recording and distruction policy because if they destroy the tape after my letter it would be spoliation of the evidence. I'm looking to file small claims court within the next month, but if someone thinks this is grounds for class action I would rather go that route! Thanks!!
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