Before I begin this post, I want to confess to something. I am awful at handling money. I have overdrawn my account so many times, but I don't have the exact number because I did not keep track. Suffice to say that in my 15 years of being a National City customer, I have given them over $3,000 in overdraft fees alone.
So why, then, would I write a griping post about a bank I've been with for 15 years? Because they are untrustworthy, unrelenting, and unethical.
After 15 years, I have finally transferred to another banking institution. And here's why.
This morning I logged into my online banking account and saw that my balance was -$145.96.
Gasping, I immediately grabbed my checkbook to see what the hell had happened. (I have been warned by my husband to keep better track of my money, so I have begun writing down everything in my ledger.)
The balance on my checkbook read $114.54. Confused, I began matching up transactions to see why there was such a large descrepancy.
It appeared that a deposit I made (cash) on the 6th of September was not processed until the 9th of September.in the meantime, a charge that was pending on the 9th seemed to be the culprit in making the account begin to overdraw.
How could that be???
I called my branch and asked to speak with the manager. After a 15 minutes conversation, with me explaining in detail why there should not be any overdraft charges to the account as I deposited cash to a teller on the 6th which covered not only all the charges since then, but the one charge that caused the overdraft.
In addition, even if he was to argue that the charge went through before the deposit was processed, why were there 3 overdraft charges and not one?
I told him to look at the account history. Told him to see how many overdraft charges I had incurred on the account. "These are allll my fault, " I said. "I never argues any of them because they were caused by my own stupidity. But the three charges that appeared today are NOT due to my negligence. This is a mistake!!!"
I told him I would even be willing to suffer through one more overdraft charge if he claimed that the account went negative before the deposit of cash was processed. But I wanted the 2 other charges refunded. "It's $68 - doesn't mean much to National City, I'm sure, but it sure means a lot to me!"
He refused to refund the charges, even though he could offer no reasonable explanation as to why a cash deposit took three days to process, and even though he had no answer as to why three overdraft charges were penalized instead of one.in addition, the manager had no customer service skills whatsoever - he was rude, insinuated that if I kept better records this wouldn't happen (HELLO???!!! I know this already but what right did he have to be so condescending???)
I guess in today's shaky world, some financial institutions are playing little tricks on unsuspecting consumers and getting away with it. Class action suits are being brought against several banks who have been doing this for years, and I wish National City could be included in that lawsuit, because if they are doing this to all their customers, then they are making a heady profit indeed!!!
Today I immediately transferred money into this National City account to regain positive status, went to my local branch and closed the account.
"May I ask why you want to close miss?"
"Yes, you may. I no longer wish to deal with such a dishonest and unethical bank."
Lost Customer: 1
Lost Overdraft Fees for a Year: estimated $1,000
Amount I wanted to be credited to my account: $68.
Standing by as National City hits the airwaves for fraudulent business practices: priceless.
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