Banks Robbing Me With Made Up Service Fees
OfflineI have banked at 3 of what has to be some of the dirtiest tactic using banks in the US and all 3 have gotten me the same way. Part of it is my fault for not having any money, but banks are very deceptive and I believe they make most of their money with all the service feesMoney charged by institutions for services provided. Sometimes the services are legit, many times, they are not. they charge their customers.
My account was close to $0.00, but I did have a few bucks in the bank and I had a paycheck deposited that would post later that night. Ok, I stop to get gas and use my debit card to purchase the gas. Well, the bank does not immediately post the amount of gas.
Actually, the bank waits almost 3 days before posting the gas to the account. I see it in my online account as pending transactions. I see the funny $1 charges from the gas stations I have been stopping at the past few days. But I don't see the actual amounts of gasoline I purchased?
Well, a few days pass and my account is NEGATIVE! Whoa, what happened. Surely this is a mistake! The bank says they do things in this order:
$1 authorization from the gas station posts immediately
Actual $ amount of the gas purchase posts immediately
Deposit paycheck after midnight
They said the $1 authorization and actual amount of gasoline purchased made my account negative so I was charged an overdraft fee! Well, now that my account was overdrawn, all hell broke loose! I had signed up for a free trial of foreclosureA legal process by which the lender seizes property of a homeowner, usually due to the homeowner not making timely payments on the mortgage. listings online. This free trial performed a $1 authorization against my debit card ... you guessed it, BAM, another $35 charge for posting a transaction against an overdrawn account! It seems any place you are using your debit card you need to make sure they are not doing those $1 authorizations. I was hit with $315.00 worth of $35 overdraft fees all from a gas purchase and a bunch of $1 authorizations!
BB&T, Wachovia, and Bank of American use this deceiving "deposit after we rob you first with service fees" method of dealing with your accounts. Are there any others?
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I can confirm Bank of America! I mean, they got me for $210 one night with those fees AND then they deposited my check. The check had been showing all day that it was ready to post that night. I'm thinking direct deposit beats everything but nope, not in Bank of America's eyes. $210 gone and they would not even refund the fees to me after I argued my point about nothing should beat direct deposit.
I switched banks! RBC has yet to display their foul tactics. But I have money in the account too at this point. If I were a broke college student again, who knows they may have sly tactics too.
Wow, that is just detestable, I have an account with Bank of America so I have got to watch them carefully. The sad thing is, there is no law against it.
I am amazed that there is no law against this foolery. Banks have so many tricks up their sleeves to make money off the customers who run tight checking accounts. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
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ForceField
All banks have a certain order in which things are debited/credited and they are not going to change it for you. You must ask or read the fine print of the brochure you get describing your account so you know how to deal with this. You should not use a debit card for money that is not actually in the bank yet, anyway. This is the same as writing a check on money that isn't there yet. You may get away with it on occasion but it will bite you in the butt eventually.
The banks will also change they way they do things from month to month. I was guilty of never reading my statements since I had an idea of what was in the bank. However, I missed important privacy opt out forms and fees for receiving paper statements because I never opened my statements to see the fine print was changing on me.
Banks can suck sometimes.
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ForceField
I got tired of being charged fee after fee from the banks. I do not have a checking account. I have a savings account in a creditMoney loaned or the ability of an individual or company to borrow money. union and a savings account in a bank. The bank charges two dollars a month for my account and pays 1.5% interest every quarter. The bank has no minimum balance. The credit union has a minimum balance of $25 to keep the account open. However, they do not charge me a monthly fee. In fact, they pay me 2.2% interest every month on my account balance, including the $25 original deposit. Guess which account I'm keeping open.
Try a $18 daily fee for being negative in your account. $18!! As if being overdrawn is not bad enough! It's stupid and how do these banks go bankrupt when all they do is collect fees?!!!!!!!
Good point exsaust. How do the banks go broke when they are stealing all this money from fees from their customers? Surely the amount they collect monthly in these outrageous fees can cover the loss of a few bad mortgages!
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Fitty
I have seen where I deposited a check before making a withdrawal and they booked the withdrawal first thus throwing my account into a negative balance and then charged me service charge on it, this was a savings account.
You might be wrong here. I use BOFA and they do deposit that day, but I live on the east coast and the bank that does auto depo. is on the west, so its a three hour time difference for me, but it still shows listed on that date.
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