Rant: Banking fees

[Modelworks]

Have to vent about a recent bank fee. On Friday I go to an ATM to get some cash, get to the part where I am waiting for cash and the ATM errors out and tells me there was a communication error please try again later. The ATM prints the receipt and on it the only thing printed is Error, try again later. No amounts or account information.

So I decide to skip the cash withdrawal and just use the card in store. I go about my day and make several purchases. Forward to today and I check my account online, what do I see, $35, $35, $35, all overdraft fees. Scroll up and I see that the ATM debited the amount but didn't inform me so on Friday I was spending money that I thought was still in the account but wasn't.

Call the bank to see if I can get the charges reversed. The broken english support person informs me that no I can't get them reversed because the amount at the ATM isn't what caused the overdraft it was the purchases after the ATM. Explaining that I had no way to know the money was taken out because of the ATM error I was still informed that it wasn't the ATM error that caused the overdraft but the purchases after. The account online didn't update and fix the errors until Monday, so I couldn't have found out the error. Then I was told that if I had called within 24 hours their might have been special consideration. I felt like I was in a chicken and egg argument with the person on the phone. They kept quoting rules and I kept trying to show them the problem with their logic till I decided to just close the account. Good riddance.

 

[Spikesoldier]

too bad bank got their fees when you closed though

way to show em

 

[Capt Caveman]

Escalate to the duty manager when you were on the phone and get the fees removed.

 

[Anubis]

dont call

go to the bank talk to someone

 

[soulcougher73]

I swear banks are out to only fuck people over. Banks have their own logic that defies normal logic.

 

[CRXican]

try keeping more money in there

$1,000 = zero balance

no good reason to ride the line like that

 

[her209]

Banks make money off you with your own money. Its fucking genius!

 

[purbeast0]

so hold up ... the atm errored and didn't give you any cash, but the ATM people are claiming that it DID give you the cash so they aren't responsible?

how could it debit your $$ but not give you the money? that right there sounds funky.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Your bank sucks, haha.

 

[dabuddha]

so hold up ... the atm errored and didn't give you any cash, but the ATM people are claiming that it DID give you the cash so they aren't responsible?

how could it debit your $$ but not give you the money? that right there sounds funky.

This. Methinks there's something missing from the OP.

 

[Bateluer]

dont call

go to the bank talk to someone

This. Take the receipt with you too.

 

[lord_emperor]

So that this point you're out however much you tried to withdraw as well as $140 in overdraft fees?

I'd be in the branch raging at the manager until every cent was refunded, THEN I'd close the account for the incompetence of the phone service.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

I really think big banks are setting themselves up to fail and get bailed out.. Particularly with the recent new debit fees etc etc..

 

[Exterous]

Why did you never go in and talk to anyone in person? Big miss there if you ask me

 

[OBLAMA2009]

imagine if you made $105 off someone doing nothing. would you want to give it back. of course not, neither does the bank

 

[Eli]

You should have just hung up and called back to get a different CSR. It's luck of the draw, if you get someone who doesn't want to help you, you're SOL.

 

[IronWing]

My fair bank just updated their overdraft protection policy. Overdrafts and advances from a linked line of credit will now billed at $12.50 per item per day. So what they are doing is charging $12.50 per item per day if a customer borrows money from an established line of credit instead of just dinging them once for automatically transferring from the line of credit plus charging the customer the established interest rate on the outstanding balance of the line of credit. Good thing I never bounce anything but damn.

 

[Texashiker]

Have to vent about a recent bank fee. <snip> Good riddance.

Banks, like most other businesses are there to make money.

You like it when you get a pay check,,, right? But its not ok for the bank to make money?

 

[Kev]

Why are you being charged overdraft fees in the first place? I thought all banks were forced to ask you to opt in to overdraft fees, and had to change the default behavior to simply denying overdrafts. Did you opt in to overdraft fees?

 

[waffleironhead]

Banks, like most other businesses are there to make money.

You like it when you get a pay check,,, right? But its not ok for the bank to make money?

The Bank error caused the fee to happen.

 

[Eli]

OP, was this Wells Fargo?

Wells Fargo phone bankers have much more power and visibility than bankers inside a branch do.

In either case though, each individual is given a limit to how much they can refund customers per day. For branch bankers, it's $100/day.. I think it might be the same for phone bankers, not sure. It's possible that the CSR you got had already waived a bunch of fees or just didn't want to help you. Like I said, if you call 5 different CSRs you will be treated 5 different ways.

Managers can refund more, so the suggestion to escalate it was a good one if you didn't want to hang up and call back.

My fiancee working for a bank as a Personal Banker was a huge wake up call. It was essentially a sales job. They're big businesses that want nothing more than to make money. If you want a more service oriented banking experience, go with a credit union.