A very few banks use the policy of considering pending transactions (a pending transactions is a amount that has been posted towards your account but not yet paid bythe bank) It is an alert to the bank that this amount of money might be presented for payment. Many times it is not in the case of gas purchases which might be held at $50.
I have been concerned that Huntington Bank and others are taking money from customers using this unethical rule by considering pending transactions as if they have been paid which reduces the account balance prematurally. Most banks only charge a NSF on transactions which are actually paid out by the bank but Huntington and some other charge based on a future amount which might be paid. Many times pending transactions never clear for various reasons.
We had dinner at a resturant they ran our debit card twice, in error. They told us the second charge would not be processed. The charge was $48. The account we use is our house hold bill account which normally has under $100 on deposit. For days this extra charge stayed in the pending transactions but was never paid. During that time 5 smaller items were presented for $18.61, $18.49, $14.34, $26.56, $21.40. We had the funds in the bank to cover all of these transactions but because of the pending $48 charge the bank charged a $37.50 fee to pay each of these items. After much arguing they finally refunded those fees.
Again on 4/27/09 a unexpected debit for $204.95 was presented against our account. It was in the pending transactions on April 27th. I noticed the fee so I went to the bank and deposited $100 to cover that amount plus add to our balance. The $100 was a cash deposit. But the next morning we had
6 NSFf fees because they processed 5 small items and they had a $20.21 additional pending transaction. I again went to the bank and deposited $255 thinking that would cover everything I was wrong again.
At the end of the day over a 3 day period we deposited $1368.03 to pay $718.55 and Huntington Bank charged us $379.07 in NSF fees. But never over those 3 days was our actual balance which reflected items paid by the bank minus. It was only minus because of pending transactions which included some items that were never paid. This practice should be stopped.
I am doing everything I can to bring attention to this practice from informing my local news outlets, writing my Senators/Representative, writing the bank again and sending a letter to the President. I am hoping maybe my letter might be one that he opens to read one day. I would not complain if my accounts had actually been overdrawn and the bank had paid out money on my behalf. I wonder if I had called them to state that I was making a deposit the next day if they would have also put that credit in the pending transaction list, I doubt it.
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