ME:
At some point, shouldn't the card have been shut off or
restricted? I can take the blame for overdrawing my account initially,
as I seem to have thought I had more money than I actually had. But to
hit me with 8 overdraft fees totalling upwards of $250 is a little too
much to grasp. If you'll notice, the majority of the charges were very
small (i.e. $2.76), as I was simply buying a drink and a candy bar at
work, not knowing that it was costing me $36. I NEVER received ANY
notice until Dec. 24th, at which point it was far too late. All in all,
this situation could easily have been avoided. I would appreciate any
help on the matter. Thank you.
Evan Dumas
p.s. Should I contact my branch manager?
B.o.A:
Thank you for your inquiry dated 12/27/05 regarding Regular Checking -
0277 Overdraft Protection. Your concerns are very important to us.
Although we are not obligated to pay an item presented if your account
does not have sufficient funds, we may pay it as a courtesy. This
occurrence may warrant an insufficient funds or overdraft fee to be
assessed to your account.
Also note that we are unable to refund any overdraft fees for two or
more occurrences unless the overdraft fee is due to a bank error. Our
research indicates the fees were applied correctly and no error
occurred. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with a refund.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If we may be
of further assistance, please contact us again by e-mail.
Sincerely,
{blank} Winslet
Bank of America
ME:
I understand that it was my error that first allowed the account to be
overdrawn. However, I was not even given NOTICE until 10 days after it
happened, nor was the card shut off to PREVENT such charges from
continuing. On top of that, you then asessed a "monthly maintenence fee AND hit me with another overdraft charge for it! I'm usually not one to make ¨threats¨, but I simply cannot afford to have such a thing happen again. I'm sorry to say that I may
begin looking into other banking possibilities in order to prevent it.
B.o.A:
Thank you for your inquiry dated 1/11/06 regarding Re: Regular Checking
- 0277 Overdraft Protection.
We apologize for the inconvenience. As of June 1, 2005, overdraft or
insufficient funds fees are assessed against your account based on the
number of overdraft fee occurrences on your account as shown below:
- 1 occurrence: $19.00 per item
- 2-4 occurrences: $31.00 per item
- 5+ occurrences: $34.00 per item
An occurrence refers to the number of days that an overdraft or
insufficient funds item presented against your account during the
preceding 12-month period. The rolling 12-month period includes the
current calendar month plus the previous 12 calendar months.
We are unable to refund any overdraft fees for two or more occurrences
unless the overdraft fee is due to a bank error. Our research indicates
the fees were applied correctly and no error occurred. Unfortunately,
we are unable to provide you with a refund.
If we may be of further assistance, please contact us again by e-mail.
Thank you for choosing Bank of America.
Sincerely,
{blank} Barnett
Bank of America
ME:
I understand the policy, I'm telling you that I don't agree with the implementation. It was clearly an effort to usurp the funds for the benefit of the bank, rather than for the "protection" of the account holder. I lost $300 on candy bars! Thank you for ruining Christmas.
Am I out of line here? I never expected the actual president of Bank of America to actually respond to my email, but I did expect one of the customer service jabronies to get back to me. After about a week (they said 12 hours), I finally got a response, and it said the same shit as the last customer service goon's reply. Overdraft "protection" my hairy, white ass! Fuckers.
7 comments:
Take it up with some sort of Better Business thingy?
just steal the candy bar next time, jesus.
and 'big daddy' you are the man, so damn you
I feel you pain man. What happened here was that merchants sued banks for not paying up when people used their debit cards back in the mid 90-s. A law was passed to protect the merchants saying that they need to get their money no matter what. To make up for this, the banks are legally ALLOWED to rape you for whatever they want if and when you overdraw. The only way to protect yourself is to either apply for a line of credit overdraft protection, or to leave a deposit of money with the bank designated as overdraft- a "rainy day" fund so to speak.
Now, speaking as someone who until recently was as broke as you are... that whole paragraph is a little laughable. Obviously if you had that money you wouldn't be getting raped by more bank charges. My suggestion? Cut up the debit card, and only play with cash for a while. Its a hassle, I know, in this all-plastic world. But its either be inconvenianced by cash, or be the subject of the banks method of negative re-enforcement via NSF fees.
I believe my bank at leasts gives you the option to have overdraft or not. That and the charge for doing it is like half of what your charged. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Bank of America sucks.
Wow I can't believe its 4am... I'm going to bed
Hey,
Here are a few articles on Bank of America you might want to look at:
Article
Discussion Board
Later,
Matt
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