I have been banking with Wachovia for over nine years and nine years too long as far as that goes. I keep fairly good banking records and I know what I can spend and can't spend, but it never fails that for some reason Wachovia "finds" reasons to overdraft my account. I have been given every excuse in the book as to why my account was overdrafted from when the merchant collected their money, that charges were not submitted until this date even though they were made the previous week and it just so happens that they decided to deduct their banking fees before paying the retailer in question, but the most recent one has put the situation over the top. I paid my electric bill on 6/24 in the amount of $130.60. After this transaction, I was left with $36.00 in my account. I went online on 6/26 and discovered that there was over $150.00 in my account. The transaction, which was there the previous day, had completely disappeared. There was no mention of money being refunded back to my account. Nothing. I called the Electric company and they told me that their records showed that I had paid the bill.
After dealing with Wachovia for close to ten years, I knew something was not right. Also, after paying a large sum in overdraft fees over the years for "my" mistakes, I knew better than to think that this was my "lucky day". This happened over the weekend, so I spent my money as if I only had $36.00 in my account. First thing Monday morning 6/29, I checked my account online and there was no mention of the transaction or a refund to my account. I deposited $100 to my account when the bank opened that morning. I made some purchases at the grocery store, gas station, the drug store, and one or two other places. I do not trust Wachovia at all and I worried about this all night. I checked my account at 2:00 A.M. This morning and there was still no mention of the transaction in question, no overdraft fees, nothing. This morning 6/30, I wake up to find out my account is overdrafted by $269.00! What! How did this happen? Sure enough the transaction that had disappeared and that had been refunded back to my account was there. It was conveniently posted before my $100 deposit and most of my transactions had been overdrafted even though I had deposited money the previous day and spent the money AFTER the deposit which still should have left enough money for the "missing" transaction! I was furious! I have read about Wachovia and how they will file charges from highest to lowest, hold charges, and other dubious banking practices and low and behold there it was on my account.
It has been a long time since I overdrafted my account, so I guess Wachovia thought it was time for their due and proper legal rape and pilage of my account. Of course I called and the excuse that I was given that if retailers do not claim their charge within 1-2 days, Wachovia refunds the money back to the account! I have never in my life heard of this practice. I have watched charges stay on my account for more than a week in a hold status.in fact I had several charges that were made BEFORE I paid my electric bill that had only cleared yesterday. The other charges were placed in order from highest to lowest not by the date of purchase. Before the charge in question the other charges are made by the date they were placed. I asked to speak to someone else and with that cheery we are stealing from you legally and there is nothing you can do about it voice, since you have been a good Wachovia customer for a long time we can refund 20% of the overdraft fees and this was not a bank error! Well I say bull@%#$! They have done crap like this time and time again.
I did some research this morning and found out that it's not just me that there are many similar stories about this crappy financial institution. How do they get away with this? If I stole your money and gave you a crappy excuse as to why I stole it and told you that I was sorry but that's my policy about stealing, I would still go to jail. How do these people get away with it? Wachovia has ripped me off for the LAST time! I WILL be searching for another bank! Whatever you do, do not bank with Wachovia unless you have a lot of money or you are just plain rich, for us po' folk is 2 stoopid to understand all this bank mumbo jumbo.
Bottom line: Wachovia is an institution that will legally steal from you and give you a lame excuse and there is nothing you can do about it except post it to a website to warn others. I feel violated. I hate the fact that I cannot even trust my own bank. I guess that's what I get from a bank whose CEO "stole" from the shareholders and used the stimulus package they recieved for other things besides getting their business straighten out! I guess that is why they need to steal from me!
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