I the fall when I began my freshman year of college I was a 17 high school early graduate. As all college students who receive financial aide know, if you have access aide you college will cut you a check of what is left after all charges have been paid every Fall and Spring semester.
Spring semester of 2003 I received a $400 check in access aide. Being the smart person I though I was, I went to the same banking institution that my school uses, US Bank, and opened an account. Everything was going fine until I ended up in the negative. After five days, I was screwed. The assess you a five dollar a day negative charge for each day you are in the negative.
When I went to put some money in the back to pay off my negative charge, I though that maybe they would stop assesing me a fee once I started paying on my account. WRONG! I ended up spending like $400 dollars to correct my account the first time I went into the negative. The second time that I went into the negative was because someone wrote me a check that bounced.
Well, my bank decided to charge me for that bounced check and wiped my account clean out and assesed me the dreaded negative balance fee. My dad paid that off, and my mom said to just close that account and open a new one account at another bank. She also said that in all of her years of working at the bank, she never heard of something like that. My mother said that what US Bank was doing was criminal. Did I listen? No. I stayed with that bank even though they treat customers horribly.
The third time that I got into the negative was recently. I let a friend borrow some money that they agreed to pay back. They didn't pay the money back to me in time and now I'm back to the damned negative balance thing again. This time, my negative balance is charged $7 a day, which has me about -$442 in the hole as of today. How can I, as a college student barely making above minimum wages afford to pay that off when I have to pay for books, school supplies, and whatever else type of neccessities I need to take care of such as food, rent, and bills?
What they are doing is criminal and US Bank knows that they are dead wrong for what they are doing to me and many other college students in Arkansas, Missouri, and wherever else they have bank branches at.
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