The summary of my post is that after approximately 12 x $35.00 in overdraft charges, I realize that Bank of America has new policy on checkcard purchases. If you, like me, were used to seeing checkcards paid 2-3 days after your purchase; now, if you do not have sufficient funds AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE you will be charged $35.00 even if the funds are in the account at the time the funds are paid out of your account.
I made a purchase on my checkcard for a fairly large sum of money, unaware that the balance of my checking account had dipped slightly below the amount of the purchase. The following day I happened to casually make a significant deposit. Two days later (today) I logged on to my Bank of America account to see that I was charged 5 x $35.00 for overdraft fees. Yet, according to the daily balance of my account, I *never* had a negative balance for a single second.
Today, Bank of America, graciously (by their perspective) agreed to refund $87.50 (this amounted to one-half of the overdraft fees). On my drive home I remembered that the customer service rep told me that the overdraft is charged any time a charge is *made* where there is insufficient funds (as opposed to when the amount is actually deducted from the account). So I realized over the past few days I have unwittingly used the card approximately 7 to 10 times for which I will be charged $35.00 for each purchase. Today for example, I had a two minute lunch and went to McDonald's. I paid about $4.00. This single $4.00 purchase alone will result in $35.00 in overdraft fees, since, at the time of the purchase, I had a negative balance. Therefore, to explain: it doesn't matter whether the money is in the account *when the charge is PAID* it only matters that the money was not their *when the charge is MADE*. (In my case, any negative balance is due solely to the overdraft fees themselves.)
Here I am a sitting duck, waiting to rack up fee after fee, because there is absolutely nothing in the world I can do to prevent the inevitable charges coming through. So, I have to sit and wait and wait and wait day after day for all those charges to come through and rack up $35.00 each as the payments for my earlier charges are paid out. It doesn't matter that my balance is way over what is minimally necessary to cover these purchases. According to Bank of America I created the problem (unwittingly) at the time I made the purchase. At this point there is no way to stop the blood letting, as an example, for the $39.00 hamburger I purchased at McDonalds.
So I called back Bank of America and told them I wanted the entire amount of overdraft fees refunded. They basically told me I as a customer was assigned a value to the bank and that $87.50 refund was all that I was going to be given no matter who I complained to. I spoke with a bank officer by the name of Mr. Sweeney at their Rhode Island call center. I explained that several hundred dollars worth of fees was not justified considering the fact that the account was never overdrawn. (Everyone you speak to is trained very well to explain how it is a customer's obligation to be "vigilant". Excuse me?!)
This information is consistent with what I understand the Bank of America culture is. I would think that they could earn a profit a legitimate way rather than creating an abusively capitalizing on the unwitting customer.
I want to state that there is an element of prey involved. There is much talk in the news about abusive lending practices.in my opinion, this type of conduct is clearly abusive banking practices.
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