Wachovia Bank
$385 Overdraft Fee After Military Direct Deposit Cleared Late

We have had many problems with Wachovia - basically the same as everyone elses with the overdraft charges. No matter how vigilant i am with my register they always find a way to screw me out of my hard-earned pay.

We are not rich, to put it lightly. Our account gets pretty low most months. I swear they like to hold everything for weeks, and if I happen to have to do the whole "well i get paid tomorrow so i'll go ahead and write a check so my kids can eat tonight" (which happens occasionally) they jump at the chance to push everything through at once and screw you with the overdraft charges.

The latest offense I'm still FUMING OVER:

My husband is active duty military. His paycheck gets direct deposited the last day of the month. It has always been this way. I plan my budget around it, and since it was the weekend I made a few essential purchases on Sunday knowing his pay would be in there the next morning. The next day when I checked the balance online it showed our *Posted Balance* as having his pay in there. However it was NOT in the *Available Funds* section... So I figured it was just a matter of time before it cleared. My purchases had not yet gone through. I checked it again at 11 o'clock last night before I went to bed - still the same. This morning when I woke up at 4am and checked up, I found that his pay had cleared, but not before six or seven other things cleared all at once, leaving me with a $385 overdraft fee.

Now I know that it is mostly my fault for having made the purchases in the first place (but sometimes you have to - i'm sure at least SOME people understand that. If a check you wrote 3 weeks ago hasn't cleared yet, what are the chances it will go through at exactly the wrong time within the next couple of hours? Well apparently pretty high with Wachovia.) But you would think a company would have enough respect not to prey on its most vulnerable customers just because it can.

It's like they saw my balance, and my charges, and said, "Hey! If we hit this chick with everything at once we can make a killing!" It doesn't matter that well more than enough money to cover it was ALREADY POSTED ONTO MY ACCOUNT.

I was on hold with customer service for about 2 hours today, finally talked to someone and explained the situation, and was basically told that it wasn't their problem. After pleading my case they offered me a 20% refund - that is $77 out of $385. I am tempted to go down to my local branch, withdraw the $77 and shove it right up their fat, greedy asses.

That was a full months daycare... Over a third of my mortgage payment (which i am now not sure how I will pay)... My gas money, my grocery money, my diaper money. But I guess none of that is as important as them having $385 more to sit in their vault surrounded by the other thousands that are already there. And now when my husband finally gets to call from Iraq I get to tell him we're broke. YAY!

As soon as I get a chance I am going to close out my account. I hate wachovia!

Company: Wachovia Bank
Country: USA
Site: wachovia.com

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