On July 2nd, at 10pm in the evening, I issued a stop payment order for check in the amount of 500.00 payable to Carmax. I was online at that time, looking at my online check register and no sign of said check. Days go by, it's the 4th of July weekend, when the transactions FINALLY post, they have paid the 500.00 check. I called customer service and was told that it takes up to 48 hours for the transaction to post into my account and since the stop payment and check went through the same day, basically not their problem. I repeatedly told the guy that the check was not in the system nor pending at the time I made the stop payment order and the site said nothing about 48 hours, only that it said the order would be valid the "next business day." I was told once again, nothing could be done and in order to even refund the stop payment fee of 30.00 that I would have to speak to a supervisor. I waited on hold for approx 20 minutes before hanging up.
Flash forward, not only the 500.00 taken out of my account, but also the 30.00 fee caused some overdrafts on my account. I put money into the account to cover the shortage even though the transactions in question were still pending, but still 140.00 came out of my account for fees. The problem here is that now 640.00 of my money has been taken out of my account.
I go down to a branch office to speak to the bank manger and I am told the same thing-that it's my fault. She agreed to refund my 30.00 stop payment fee. When I told her that if this fee money, not to mention the 500.00 extra dollars were in my account, I wouldn't have any of these problems nor overdrawn transactions. She also insisted that it wasn't any of their wrongdoing, insisted that I knew it would take 24 hours for the stop payment to take effect and that I spent money knowing that it wasn't in the bank. I spent money based on the fact that I should have an extra 500.00 in the bank. She was rude, insisted that it was my fault for spending money I knew was not in the account. My balance at this point showed a negative 81.00 and some change (on her computer, not mine). As I had paid the 140.00 in overddraft fees in order to clear up my account until I could get the problem resolved. I told her that I would like to close my account even though I had it for about 13 years. She said that that was unfortunate, but it could not be closed without paying it up to date. I told her I had the money in my purse for the 81.00, who do I go to... Etc... She then said, well you have to pay the 81.00 and also the 5 overdraft fees associated with the negative 81.00 balance about to go through now for 5 new PENDING transactions. That is another 175.00 in fees. I got upset, said a few choice words and left as I was not about to go pay an additional 5 fees, bringing the total of fees to 315.00. She also did not care that I had been trying to resolve this issue for days now. She didn't even have the decency of following through with her promise to refund the 30.00 fee.
Now, all of this started with a miscommunication about a stop payment on a check... I decided to make a car payment online to make sure it was paid on time as it had been such a long time since I wrote the check that I thought it might have been lost in the mail. There was no reason I should have thought there was going to be a problem, but neither customer service nor the bank manager was going to agree with me for any reason or even try to see it from my perspective. I asked the bank manager that "If I am looking at my online account register, it shows no sign of the check in question, i put forth a stop payment on the check that is supposed to be effective the following business day, would I honestly think there was going to be a problem?" She said she didn't see it from my perspective because she is a word person, say what you mean, mean what you say... I still don't know what she meant by that." Also, she stated that since I had a courtesy refund on some overdraft fees earlier in the year, it couldn't be done but once a year. I told her that the ones from earlier were not my fault and I wish she could look it up to verify that. She simply implied that it is always "our fault" and it is simply a courtesy to refund any of them at all.in retrospect, the fees from earlier were from them not depositing an ATM deposit in a timely manner. I don't know if it got lost or what.
Now, here I am with printouts of the information I have seen on my online account. Printouts that verify not only that the stop payment was to take effect the next business day, but also another printout of the day the first four overdrafts occurred. Even though my balance is in the red on only two transactions, they charged me for FOUR overdrafts. Also, in investigating this problem, I noticed that the transactions are all processed it seems at the same time, but they are processed from the largest transaction to the smallest. It's obvious the transactions are not being processed in the order received, they are being rearranged to maximize revenue from Overdraft fees. What does this mean to me? That on the second day of NSF fees, when I received 5 FEES, that there was money in my account to cover 4 out of the 5. Since they processed the largest one first, here I am with an additional 4 fees that could've been avoided.
This bank has predatory and unethical procedures. I am tired of feeling helpless and that it's my fault. They have taken money that rightfully belongs to me. Not to mention taking my time, stressing me out and basically treating me like my business does not matter to them. Now that I have paper work to back up my claims, I need to know what to do next.
I know from experience talking to a bank manager at one of the branches that the debits are processed ahead of the payments, so that even if transactions and deposits enter their system the same day, I will get the shaft. And also, i don't understand a computer process that allows a check and a stop payment for that check to be processed the same day and not catch the check. I should have about 200.00 in my bank account right now, but instead, I am in the red almost 300.00, not to mention the 500.00 I had to come up with to cover a double car payment.
After looking into this on the internet, I see that many people are as frustrated as myself. I even had a dealing with one bank manager who told me that since they rearranged their processing structure back in March to process debits before payments that he has seen a tenfold increase in customer issues. "More in the past 3 months than i have seen in the 1 1/2 years I have been with the company." When I asked for the bottom line, if it was done just to milk money out of customers, he said that yes, it was and he himself felt it was unethical. I went to him because I had called customer service because I had a pending transaction for my rent check. I wanted to deposit money that same day to make sure it was covered and not rejected. The customer service rep told me that if i deposited it then, as I was in the ATM line while I was talking to her, that there wouldn't be a problem. Yet, the check was sent back NSF and I was charged 35.00. When I called customer service the next day, there was no record of my previous phone call made. I then went to the branch to correct the situation. The branch manager was very nice, said he would refund my 35.00 and would draft a letter for my landlord if needed.in retrospect, I didn't understand why, when it was all said and done, that there was a 27.00 credit to my account for 3 months worth of account fees at 9.00 each. I guess this was the closest he could do to giving my money back. (Now I know about the refund only once every 365 days.)
Mmbluebaby
Ft Worth, Texas
U.S.A.
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