On 12/7 I had used my Fifth Third checking account to go to a doctors appointment and do some Christmas Shopping for my daughter. When I returned home early that evening I realized I would need more money in my checking account to insure all of my expenditures where covered and therefore made a transfer from my savings into my checking that same day.
The transfer was done online, and applied immediately to my available balance. I retired for the evening assuming all was well.
The next morning on the 8th the money that I transferred over from my savings was still listed as a pending transaction while the expeditures I hade made on the 7th were now applied to the account. This left my ledger balance in the negatives. The items were arranged inorder to maxamize the amount of overdrafts incurred.By the 9th there were over 500 dollars in overdraft fees resulting from several minor purchases.
What gets me is that I had transferred money over from my savings to cover this, I had made absolutely sure that my expenditures would be completely covered. Fifth third bank did not apply my transfer until the 8th, even though it was made on the the 7th, the same day as my purchases.
Fifth Third withheld my legitimate transfer in order to Insure that I incurred overdraft fees.
When I complained I was told that online transfers only apply to the following day when they are completed before 7pm.
First off, I thought this was 24hour banking. There is absolutely no reason for that policy except to maximize profit at the consumer's expense. Its simply unfair to the customer. I was never made aware of this, and since I was left with the implication that this was 24 hour banking I never even thought it would be a problem.
Anyone I spoke to at the bank was completely unsympathetic to my situation. There is no way I can pay for 500$ (and rising) overdraft fees. I just cant afford it, its Christmas time and with the current economy things are bad enough.
It's common knowledge that Fifth Third arranges your transactions from largest expenditure to smallest to insure that they can apply as many overdraft fees as possible. I knew this, so I do whatever I can to avoid overdrafting my account. Yet I had NO IDEA there was a cut off point for the application of online transfers?
24 HOUR BANKING??? There is no honest reason to have such a cut off time. It's not like I'm interrupting some employeess dinner, or a service rep has to get out of bed to complete my transfer, its all online and automated.
If Fifth Third had just applied the transfer instead of purposely withholding it I could have avoided $500 of overdraft fees. It dishonest and completely unfair. No I am in some serious financial trouble just in time for the holiday. Seriously, its not like I spent more money than I had, I transferred money from savings to checking ON THE SAME DAY I MADE PURCHASES.
I hope there is a class action law suit against these thieves one day. They way they treat there customer's is atrocious and I am starting to believe some serious federal regulations are required to protect consumers from horrible policies that serve no purpose but maximize Fifth Third's profits at my expense.
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