I love the pizza at E. Milano's Pizzeria. I was out of cash one evening and had just ordered a replacement bank card (Go figure), so I decided to use a check to pay for the pizza I ordered. Everything was fine until a month later. The check had cleared my bank, I could even see a copy of the check via Bank of America's online checking service. However, E. Milano's Pizzeria sent my check to collections or at least a copy of it. This collection's agency (I cant remember the name of the company) then attempted to clear the check AGAIN. And again, and again, and again... Every time it clearing my bank but without a check copy view and under a strange name.
At this point I called Bank of America to find out who was posting these checks on my account. They refused to give me any information on the party, but told me I must contact the company first before perusing a fraud case. So I did some research. After 2 months of hard core digging, and about another 10 checks cleared, some causing me multiple overdraft fees, I found the company.
When I called and spoke with one of their customer service, I use this term very lightly, reps and explained the situation, making sure they fully understood the check had cleared MANY times. I was yelled at, badgered, and threatened. She told me "If you don't pay us what you owe, we will hunt you down and take it from you by force." Not very good business practice I might add...
By this point I'm fuming... So I call Bank of America back and explain the phone conversation I just had to them. They transfer me to the Fraud Prevention department. I then explained it again. Then, they told me they completely understood and would look into it and send me one of their fraud forms.
In about 5 days I got the form, filled it out, and faxed it back to the guy I spoke with. Then called him via his extension an hour after the fax went though. Now we all know that this is Bank of America, and since I have my account with them, they have access to all my records. After holding for 45 minutes, he came back and told me I needed to fax him a copy of all the transactions in question. I requested a supervisor.
Now, this supervisor was less than helpful. He told me that this case would not be opened and he was "Sorry" for the inconvenience. When I asked why, he said it was not fraud, I just let my check get into the wrong hands and it was my fault! MY FAULT!
After another month of trying to get this fixed I finally closed my account. The customer service wouldn't even change my account number, even though they have to if requested. I went to far as to bring every copy of my evidence to every branch manager in Nashville. No one would do anything.
By the time this was all said and done, it cost me over $7,000 in check charges and another $3,000 in overdraft fees within a 4 month period. Which I still have not been reimbursed for to this day!
I currently use US Bank, and I have been nothing but happy with their customer service and willingness to refund wrongful overdraft charges (It happens). The manager of the branch in Downtown Nashville even refunded me $200 in overdraft charges because of a vacation mishap which was purely my fault.
In short, NEVER write a check to E. Milano's Pizzeria!!! They are the ones that started this whole thing!
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