US Bank is clearly a business that lives on fees, and its unwritten motto seems to be to find any way to put the customer at a disadvantage. In front of me are about 25 recorded continuous overdraft fees plus 1 force-closed fee. Every one of them grew out of a single unauthorized internet charge.
Before that web transaction was submitted, I had told the bank's fraud department about the unauthorized charge. They assured me nothing would go wrong, though their advice was that, to be safe, I should probably keep too little in the account to cover the amount. The transaction arrived on May 10, and the bank paid it, which overdrew my account by $15.52.
After that the bank kept piling on charges: one for a returned check that the statement did not identify, 9 continuous overdraft charges, a second unidentified returned check charge, then 13 more continuous overdraft fees, and finally a fee for force-closing the account. The grand total was $388.52. I never touched or used this account after May 10, and I had no outstanding checks anywhere. The only activity on it was started by US Bank and benefited US Bank.
Around the time the charges had reached 60 some dollars, I tried to close the account. They told me I could not unless I paid that sum along with a fee for closing it. My answer then was no, and it is still no. If resolving this takes litigation, so be it. Banking practices like these must be stopped. They are unjust and far from what I assumed banks were basically supposed to offer, which is customer service.
Letters will follow this report to the BBC, the FTC, the state attorney general's office, and every banking ethics group and consumer reporting agency I can find. I am more than a little angry about this.
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