Unfortunately after several incidents and several hundred dollars of overdraft fees, I have figured out US Bank's strategy of misleading their customers in order to collect an ungodly amount of fees. I recently deposited a $400 check into our account due to the fact that the same problem I'm about to report occured and we were charged over $300 in overdraft fees. So, after depositing the $400, I went online and noticed that at the top of the online statement, there was a note indicating that $300 was being held pending clearance of the deposited check.
HOWEVER, approximately 24-48 hours later, that note disappeared and my Available Balance was showing about $196. Additionally my husband called to check the Available Balance and was also given the $196 figure. Naturally, one would assume that Available Balance would mean those funds are available for use, and by their own definition listed on the website, "This balance lists the funds in your account that are available for withdrawal. This is the Account Balance minus deposited funds being held or check card authorizations outstanding." Note it says MINUS deposited funds being held. This actually is not the case - when I clicked on the blue hyper-link provided on the online statement, I was shown that the $300 is still considered unavailable funds and our Available Balance is actually negative $103.
If we didn't have access to the Internet in order to find that out, and went solely on the information given when my husband called in to check our balance, we would have been charged overdraft fees on any purchases we made. That is how we got all the overdraft fees to begin with - another deposit was made previously and because the Available Balance showed the entire deposit was available, we were naive enough to believe it and spent money that apparently wasn't really available... Even though they told us it was.
This practice is unconscionable, underhanded and downright dishonest. Why list funds as available when they aren't? Overdraft fees... Period.in the meantime, because those funds aren't available yet and we're still in a negative balance, I actually had to borrow some of my daughter's birthday money in order to get some gas and groceries!!! We live paycheck-to-paycheck and the bank is slowly milking us to the point of having to borrow money from my father and my 11-year old daughter just to get by.
I would be interested to hear comments or other incidents of this occurring.
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