I was interested to see that other customers of US Bank have encountered similiar problems to mine regarding their overdraft policies. When this began I knew that I could not be the only one to have been stung by what amounts to a check kiting scam.
My wife and I operate a small consulting business with most of our work done for agencies of the federal government. Following good business practice we have a separate checking account just for the business, which we originally set up with Colorado National Bank in 1994. It was a low volume account, so we very rarely incurred any service charges; but that all changed with the advent of US Bank as the new owners.
Soon after US Bank acquired Colorado National we noticed a concerted effort on the part of this corporation to get us to switch our business checking account to a different type of account with more features-and more fees. We turned down each of these requests, being quite satisfied with the account as it was, and not needing any of these new features that US Bank wanted to foist off on us. At times the requests to change over to a higher fee based account seemed almost to reach a frenzy, as if it were vital to US Bank to get us out of the older, less expensive type of account.
Then about July US Bank instituted a new policy regarding deposits and overdraft fees. This new policy gave them the option of holding your deposit for up to five business days if you made a deposit in an out of network ATM. The definition of what constituted a network ATM was a bit fuzzy, as US Bank has taken the position that they do not own any of the ATMs you might find at their banks; only that the ATMs are part of the Plus System.
On November 7 I received a check for a job I had done for the National Park Service in August. I could not get to a US Bank branch in time to deposit the check that day, so I stuck it in my notebook intending to stop off at a branch sometime the next day. The next morning I went to the National Park Service office in Lakewood, Colorado, where I was working on another project for them, when I noticed a Plus System ATM in their lobby.
Now for anyone who is familiar with the entire ATM phenomenon you know that when these things began appearing in the early 1980s they were touted as being the future of banking for most people. You could withdraw money, and conduct most routine banking functions just as long as you made sure that the ATM was in your network.
One of the largest of these networks is the Plus System; a transaction at one of their machines was the same as one right at your bank. So I made the deposit at the Plus System ATM in the lobby of the office of the National Park Service and went about my business secure in the knowledge that my money was safely in my US Bank business account.
However, US Bank does not see things the way the rest of the world views them. This corporation has instituted a policy that only deposits made to the ATMs directly in front of their banks are available within one business day; deposits made at other machines are held for five business days no matter if the ATM is within the same network or not.
This was one of those policy changes instituted via an obscurely worded message in fine print on their web site. If you had not been looking for such a policy change you would never be aware of it, which has become a far too common practice among US financial institutions in recent years.in fact it appears to be exactly what many of these corporations count on when dealing with their customers.
The deposit was made on Thursday November 8, but as I found out later the ticker did not start for US Bank until Friday November 9th. The weekend does not count as business days (even though US Bank clears charges to your account on those days), and Monday the 12th was a holiday.
As it turns out US Bank held crediting those funds to our business account until November 16th. Why? Because the deposit, while made at an ATM within the Plus System of which US Bank is a member, was not made at an ATM physically located at one of their branches.
Meanwhile, I am blissfully unaware that US Bank is holding up crediting the deposit to my account. I wrote some checks and treated myself to a mocha latte at Starbucks one morning, completely unaware that US Bank, while holding up my deposit, was simultaneously charging me an overdraft fee for everything presented for payment once the first check cleared effectively wiping out my original account balance. And their overdraft fees are not cheap!
Part of their policy change was to also increase their overdraft fees to $31 for the first four on any given day, and $35 for everyone over that. As the checks I had written (believing that I had plenty of money in my account to cover them) began to clear the overdraft charges began to mount up. It wasn't until I checked my account balance after making a cash withdrawal at one of the US Bank ATMs that I got wind of what was happening. My account looked to be light by several hundred dollars, which as it turns out it was.
All told US Bank relieved my account of $450.50 in overdraft fees, analysis service fees (an additional charge for the paperwork in processing the overdraft fees), and just to put the icing on the cake, a $2 fee for having the audacity to deposit my check in a Plus System ATM (of which US Bank is a member) that was not at a US Bank facility.
A call to their customer service department resulted in only being told that what they had done, while unethical and borderline criminial, was perfectly within their right as defined by their new policies.
So I am out the $450.50 because US Bank refuses to make an exception to their policies, even considering the long business relationship between us. They apparently don't understand that it costs much more to attract new customers than it does to retain old ones.US Bank is only interested in making as much money off their customers as they can, and are willing to make arbitrary changes to their policies in order to fulfill this goal.
I think part of this attitude stems from customers such as myself who were unwilling to switch over to new types of business accounts that would allow US Bank to charge much higher fees. If they couldn't get small business owners such as myself one way they would get us another. It all comes down to the bottom line and to hell with the customer.
I have severed my relationship with US Bank and opened up a new business account with Wachovia. Being new to banking in Colorado (recently acquired World Savings) Wachovia seems to be more customer oriented. This is a refreshing change from the 'My way or the highway' attitude of US Bank.
I am filing this report as a warning to anyone considering opening an account with US Bank as well as to those existing customers who have not yet run afoul of this bank's new policies. They will take any opportunity to steal money from your account and then drag out some obscure policy change to justify their actions. Do business with them at your peril, because they are only interested in one thing: turning your money into their money.
As an aside, US Bank turned my $4 latte from Starbucks into a $39 latte. That seems like an awfully high price to pay just for doing business with US Bank.
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