I recently discovered that bank of america changed the posting priority for transactions and I have received well over $100 in overdraft charges despite never actually overdrafting my account. I have two great examples for you.
First about 3 weeks ago, I had a checking account balance of $3.52. I went to the ATM and deposited a check for $350, the first $300 became available instantly per my account standing at BofA. I received a receipt for the transaction showing an available balance of $303.52. After depositing the check, I went back to work and before I left for the evening I logged into my BofA account to check my savings account balance which was $25. I checked the available balance which still showed $303.52 as available. So after work I drove to a local ice cream shoppe and got a sundae to go, total transaction purchase was $4.52 which I put on my debit card. I went home and thought nothing of it. The next morning I received an e-mail alert saying that my account had overdraft and I had received a $35 fee. I was shocked, that didn't make any sense I had a sizable available balance. I logged into my Bank of America account online and simply could not understand why I was charged a fee because my account was never negative. I called the 800 number and spoke with several reps including a manager who tried but could not justify the amount. Here's how they explained it to me:
On the day in question I had a starting balance of $3.52. I went to the ATM and made my deposit. Later in the day I went and bought a sundae for $4.92. However despite them making the funds available to me, she noted that I should look at the ATM receipt. Which showed the date and time of the transaction 10/20 at 13:42, which seemed fine, then she said that I should look below the top line, in smaller print it says "posting to account xxxxx on 10/21", then she informed me that it technically wasn't available until the next day. So when they calculated my account that evening they took my current balance, subtracted pending withdrawals first so even though some transactions were pending that reflected in the available balance the pending withdrawal posted first: So my account looked like this the next morning for accounting purposes (according to them and again I can't fathom this but its there rule):
Beginning Balance $153.52
Pending Withdrawal: -4.92
Posted Withdrawal (item that was pending that posted overnight): -$150.00
Posted Deposit: $350.00
Ending Balance: $348.40
So because pending is now prioritized first my account was overdrawn by $1.40 based only on order of priority. It never actually showed negative because online it looks like this:
Pending: -4.92 (available balance $348.40)
Deposit: $350.00 (available balance $353.52)
Posted:$150.00 (available balance $3.52)
So online the balance never shows negative. It was simply a matter of how they did the accounting but I can't see it. Then I decided to transfer the balance of the savings account to the checking to cover most of the fee and not mess with my check register. So I transfered the $25 to checking leaving a savings account balance of $0. However there was a keep the change deposit that had shown in the saving account that day of 8 cents, that they reversed the next day for "low balance" because of the other posting issue. So despite allowing me to transfer the $25 from the saving account, my account reversed the 8 cent keep the change, and instead of having an account balance of 2 cents, I had an account balance of -8 cents, but it gets better because the day the account was negative 8 cents another keep the change transfer for $1.30 also posted, so my account never shows negative online, but for their accounting purposes it did, and I was charged a $35 overdraft fee for the savings account too!
It gets better folks. I went into the local branch to straighten this out because it simply did not make sense to me, and the woman in the branch explained that she could not reverse the fees because I had 7 overdraft fees this year. I explained that the 7 fees were associated with an unauthorized transaction and they had been reversed after they reviewed the formal claim I filed. She explained that it didn't matter that because they had been reversed they counted against me and she couldn't reverse these fees as a result. So I got hit with $70 worth of fees despite never overdrafting my account!
So621
Waltham, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
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