I am a new customer to First Convenience Bank Texas. I was excited about my account at this bank until I found out how they do business. First of all customer service is not on the top of their list until you announce you will do business elsewhere. However that is not my complaint. Did you know that Overdraft Protection to First Convenience is not "Protection" at all as I quote the customer service rep. When I say this, it is" A PRIVILEGE".
Privilege or Protection, call it what you want but the idea remains the same. It is established to cover funds that you do not have in your account. We think of it as a loan until pay day in which like any loan there is a price for using the bank's money, hence the OD Fee. First Convenience Bank has a policy or procedure (although not found in my contract) that they will charge you OD Fees based on the available balance of your account (Current Balance - any pending transactions).
Basically what this means is the minute your available balance reaches a negative number every transaction will post an OD Fee to your account. This occurs even when the funds are in the account and after drafting that transaction your account remains in a positive balance. Am I making since or have I lost you. Lets say that you have $52.00 in your bank as "current balance" you use your debit card 2 times resulting in a pending transaction for $30.00 and one for $10.00. Your "available balance" is $12.00 but until those transactions post your "current balance is still $52.00.
Well knowing you will overdraft you make a 3rd purchase for $15.00 now your "available balance" is (-$3.00) keep in mind that no transactions have posted to your account (been paid out) so your current remains $52.00. The next morning you look at your account you discover a charge of $102.00 in OD Fees resulting in a current balance of (-$105.00) you are now confused and wondering where you miscalculated your bank ledger, right? By your record keeping you should only be in the red (-$37.00) WOW! What a difference. What has happened is that the bank charged 3 OD Fees and feels they have the right to do so.
Regardless of the order in which the transactions posted only 1 transaction would have put you in the negative. Look at it from this light. Look at this as an equation or your ledger, (current balance) $52.00- (transaction 1) $30.00 = $22.00 (remaining current balance) - (transaction 2) $10.00 = $12.00 (remaining current balance). There should have been now OD Fee charged as there was no Over Draft to account for at the time that transaction 1 and 2 were paid out, FUNDS WERE IN THE BANK TO COVER THE EXPENSE.
You where charged $34 for each time there was a transaction paid once the bank "anticipated" you would have a negative balance after all pending transactions posted. YOU PAID THE BANK TO SPEND YOUR OWN MONEY! When you contact the bank with this they claim it is standard practice, if you are persistent about the rip off and speak to enough managers then you can get some of this refunded to you but not all of it. The way I see it is the bank is manipulating the system to get more money from you than they are entitled.
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