BB&T Bank
Overdraft Fees, Check Order and Courtesy Loan Complaints

Here is the problem: my wife and I put money into a bank. Collectively, the bank uses the funds that we and tens or even hundreds of thousands of other customers deposit into their institution. They use our money to make money. But apparently that's not enough. Why make money the hard way, why not charge your customers fees every chance you get? Things like $2.00 to call customer service, ATM fees at $2-$3 a pop, charging $5 to anyone who tries to cash at BB&Fee a check that I wrote if they don't have an account (I've actually had to give people cash because they didn't want to pay the $5 fee), and the biggest rip-off of all, the "courtesy loan." When you bounce a check they pay it for you and charge you $35 for the "loan," and I'm not even talking about credit card fees.

Now that wouldn't be so bad, but as anyone that banks with BB&Fee knows, you could have $1001 and 20 checks out. One of the checks could be for $1000 and the other 19 could total less than $100. They put the $1000 check through first and deplete your account, then charge you for 19 bounced checks (my math puts that at about $665). Then they have the audacity to tell you they do this as a SERVICE to you! The twisted rationalization is that they don't want you to bounce your mortgage check?!?! (usually a person's largest payment). When I asked the bank's "justifier" (customer service person) why I didn't have the choice for this "courtesy," she told me that that was just the way they do business.

The other "neat" thing they started to do was to look at the time you made a purchase and look at your account at that instant. If the money isn't there, then they hit you with a fee, even though the transaction hasn't hit the bank yet. Even if you have a deposit that reaches the bank before yesterday's transaction, it makes no difference, BAM! Another fee that usually leads to other fees.

If you're like my wife and me and you're living check to check, these kinds of predatory practices are disgraceful and are responsible for a lot of our nation's problems. We just got through a period of predatory lending in the mortgage industry, and now we have to deal with it in our banking industry? The bottom line is we can all change banks, but the real issue is where is the oversight that should protect the American consumer and our economy in general from companies that are ruining our economy. Changing banks only works until my new bank is forced to do business the same way in order to stay competitive. Fees don't produce the kind of income that helps sustain our economy. They do more harm than good. People are hit with hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in fees, miss mortgage payments and car payments, and I'm certain many default and end up losing their hard-earned possessions so a few bankers can get rich.

USA Today wrote an article on 7/8 (the article was called "Banks' 'courtesy' loans at soaring rates irk consumers") regarding the types of fees that BB&Fee and the nation's 10 largest banks are now charging their customers.

Banks have now turned bounced checks into a 38.5 billion dollar industry. This is almost twice the 20.5 billion they get from credit card fees.

The bottom line is that a bank that charges a $27 fee on a $20 bounced check that is paid back in less than two weeks is effectively earning over 3,000% in interest.

There is legislation in Congress to change the way banks are doing business, but the industry is lobbying hard against oversight. The rationale? If banks couldn't charge such steep fees, then 45% of banks would not have made a profit last year. So instead of asking banks to make better decisions and be more efficient, they should just be allowed to take advantage of consumers to sustain their poor business practices.

In 1996 the Supreme Court lifted many of the restrictions on banks to charge fees, and since then an army of "consultants" has been hard at work finding ways for banks to maximize profits. Some are good ideas, things like including certain forms on the back of statements to minimize calls to call centers, but most are finding ways to charge fees and delay processing of consumers' deposits. An example is that deposits made after hours and at teller machines that don't have slips, or that aren't filled out right, are deliberately held for 5 days. An internal memo from Wachovia bank was leaked that showed that they were more interested in company profits (the old responsibility-to-shareholders routine) than in their customers. They asked branches to stop refunding bounced checks.

It is the government's job to protect citizens from large corporations with the means and the desire to make policies that are made without the slightest thought to ethics and morals. This really is the reason our country will fail. It's a sorry state of affairs, and I for one am ashamed of all the companies whose goal it is to make money with absolutely no thought to the people they are hurting and, instead of doing business better, cry that they cannot be allowed to fail, take billions in government bailout money (our tax money), and then turn around and hire consultants to find new ways to wring money from consumers.

Company: BB&T Bank
Country: USA
State: West Virginia
City: Martinsburg
Site: www.bbandt.com

  <     >