American Eagle Bank has fraudulently withdrawn funds from my account. I have a car note with them and was late on a payment. I received a letter in the mail on July 9th notifying me that my payment is past due by $200 (about half of my normal monthly payment), I immediately sent a check for the amount. On July 13th I was contacted by the banks collections department, funny how only 4 days later I was already being harassed. I let them know that a check was being sent from my bank that it was mailed out today and they would receive it early next week.
The associate who called me stated that it was policy to take the checking account information over the phone so that they could do an electronic withdraw if my check doesn't arrive.in otherwords they didn't trust that my check was in the mail and wanted back up. After ensuring with this associate that she would not cash this electronic check if my check showed up I allowed her to do so and was told if there was a check cashed it would be for the $200. Besides that I had another check being sent from my bill pay with my checking account, it was enroute. When I ended the call I was given the idea that my check would arrive and be cashed, the electronic check would be cancelled, and my enroute check would get their shortly there after.
On July 23rd I checked my checking account online to find that my $200 check had arrived and was cashed, and the electronic check was also cashed. However the electronic check was not for $200, it was for $379.33 the full amount of my car payment plus a $12 check processing fee. This brought my balance down to $166 until the next payday which isn't until July 31st. I immediatly contacted the original associate who set up the transaction to find out what happened. The associate admitted to the mistake apologized and offered to apply the $12 check fee to my principle balance, at the time I was at work and busy. I accepted the offer and after a quick glance felt that I could work out only having $166 until the following Tuesday. I also was forced to stop payment on the check that was enroute to them since they had taken the liberty of doing the electronic check for double the amount of what I was sending them. There was a $28 fee for stopping that check.
At the time all of this took place I did not take into account that I had checks that had not cleared yet, when I wrote them I was unaware that American Eagle Bank was fraudulently dipping into my checking account. Over the course of the next few very busy days my checks were cashed and my account became overdrawn. Between the cashed checks, overdraft fees and stopped check fee my account was now negative $186.75, $133 of that was overdraft and stopped check fees. I was livid as to be expected. I have my aunts wedding to attend this weekend, I was also going to take her kids to the zoo the next day, and would have been unable to fill up my empty gas tank that night had a friend not lent me $50 bucks.
I contacted the bank and kept my calm as I am known to do. I work in customer service and I know it's much easier for everyone to deal with the situation while remaining calm. I explained my situation, I faxed them my bank statment and asked what they were going to do about it. They contacted me back and stated that they would offer $58 for their mistake, they refused to pay for the stopped check fee, and were only going to offer $58 towards the overdraft fees. This offer was unacceptable to me. Not only did I have to ask for money for gas which was embarassing, I had to call my Aunt who is getting married this weekend so she would have enough time to find babysitters for her children on Sunday when I was supposed to take them to the zoo. I was told that if I wanted to argue the point I would have to contact another associate at the bank who has been in meetings and on phone calls all day long. She is avoiding me, I even sent her an email and cc'd the branch managers. No response back yet. I have since contacted my bank who is now beginning an investigation on the fraudulent check that American Eagle Bank processed.
Great customer service American Eagle Bank!!!
Jennifer R
Woodstock, Illinois
U.S.A.
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