My Mom's Banks Overcharged her w/3 Bounced Checks Even Though She Had Funds in Her Account

[romantico]

So, my Mom asked me to look at her bank statement today. She had three checks bounce last week (& My Mom simply put, does not bounce checks) Her social security check went in on the 3rd Wednesday of the month(August 18) She wrote three checks on Tuesday (the 24th) and all three bounced. She had the money in the account before the Social security check went in but they still bounced. The most being $45 and the smallest being $10. The bank then charges her $35 for each bounced check. I've looked over the bank statement and can figure out how this could have happened.

My name is not on the account but when my Mom calls tomorrow she wants me to do the talking. I know I have to be calm and to be sure to tell whoever I talk to that this frustration is not directed at them personally but I AM PISSED! We need to know what's going on but I fear the bank will justify this,refuse to pay back the overdraft fee's, and I will be even more angry after getting off the phone.My Mom is terrified to pay anymore bills,even though she has plenty still in her account(although, all these overdraft fee's have screwed up her account)

Has this ever happened to anyone before? Any advice would be helpful. Both my Mom and I dread making this call but we have to. She even has a new bank in mind because I feel she is going to want to close this account ASAP after we talk tomorrow. My problem is being calm. Can anyone think of any other questions I should ask about this? Many thanks!

[elleng]

1. Speak to them calmly, say, 'There seems to be a problem,'

and make it THEIR problem, not yours/your mom's. Your position: They MUST remove ALL charges, as THEY are/were in error. Make it easy for them to recognize this, as in, 'as you can see, SS was credited on the 18th, and checks thereafter should have been paid.'

Breathe deeply, and don't fear! 'Happens all the time.'

[Kali]

2. ask to talk to a supervisor if you get no satisfaction

(also so you will have a better chance of getting a US citizen) but even better would be to go to your local branch and make them show you the errors on paper if they won't refund the charges - if you are really sure the money was there they should give it all back - if it was maybe not quite there on time, then don't expect more than one refund.

It sucks but they do this shit all the time and they will order the checks to go through so the biggest one goes first and depletes any remaining funds to the point that subsequent checks for smaller amounts will all bounce rather than pay the small ones first and maybe just charge for one.

Make the call or go down there - it will be worth at least one charge refunded I can almost guarantee it. Stay as calm as you can although being upset at the process is fine - just don't be aggressive or angry at the person you are speaking to (unless they are truly an asshole - that happens occasionally - just keep going up the food chain until you get satisfaction. Do not believe ANYBODY that tells you they can't do anything - go up)

[noamnety]

3. We've had several bank fees removed within the last year.

I think banks have complicated their own system so much that even they can't figure it out. With us, it was that we get no charges as long as our total balance among two linked accounts has to stay above a certain dollar amount. Every time we transferred money though the accounts seemed to "unlink" from each other and they'd start charging us again.

Each time it was kind of a pain to resolve, but we went in with the understanding that we weren't leaving til it was fixed. I guess if they'd refused, our next step would have been going through the better business bureau; you can file a complaint online for free and have them deal with it once you hit your point of frustration. I did that once with sears, it worked.

Don't go in pissed if you can help it, remember it's not the local bank manager that made the problem - so don't take it out on them (unless they give you a reason to).

[romantico]

4. Thanks

I am surprised to hear this happens often.My Mom has said,this doesn't happen a lot, but there have been a time or two where she has checked the balance and done the math and noticed her account has been $30-$75 short. She never has investigated because she felt it has been her error. She now wonders if this has occurred before. My Mom just turned 70 and is as sharp as a tack!(She does my taxes cause I'm too dumb when it comes to math) but she asked me to start checking her bank statements (two sets of eyes are better than one)Thanks for the advice!

[Chan790]

5. Be prepared to go into the bank...

I say that as a banker because the bank I work for does not allow us to discuss balances, fees or account specifics except face-to-face. It's a client security concern. Even then, they will probably not talk to you even with her if you're not on the accounts. Same reason. It's not actually a bank-thing, it's part of our required due diligence to protect client assets and information under federal law. (The only people I can talk to about a client outside of fellow bank officers are the client, their legal guardian or PoA, their legal representation after notification from the client that person is their legal rep.) That said, it only takes a signature from her authorizing them to add you to the account in most cases.

As for your concerns, are the fees labeled as NSF or UAF? That makes a huge difference in how they're treated and how they're assessed. NSF means you just didn't have the money at all. UAF means that the total amount of funds to come out of the account in one business day exceeds the total available funds (which is less than the account balance) and thus not knowing which to pay prioritize or not pay, they were all rejected equally. UAFs are easier to deal with than NSFs.

I can't know without specifics of the case and the internal policies of that bank but something seems off here. The law changed on how we can do all of these things within the last 2 months in ways that reduces bank profitability so a lot of banks are trying to get while getting's good as this is the last month (technically, fiscal-month July) they can do these things re: fees and Reg. E. Often, this is happening at the branch-level because we're being squeezed to maintain the same profitability margins with less business and facing having less tools (those fees) to generate that income.

Don't bother with an FSR, you're going to want to speak to the branch manager as they're usually the only person authorized to do multiple fee waivers or fees over a very minimal amount. My fee-waiver limit as a corporate-window teller (as opposed to a regular teller) is $5 for example. My Teller Coordinator's is $100 and she's the assistant branch manager. The Branch manager's is basically not limited.

My expectation going in would be that best-case they waive 2 fees and leave the 3rd one intact unless you can prove malfeasance or bank-error.

[romantico]

6. Thanks!

I dread calling them but I think you might be right. I think she may have to go down and speak with them in person. She has already decided to change banks,no matter what the outcome is. She simply is afraid to pay her bills and fears her money is not safe in the bank. When that happens and you no longer feel you have a bank's trust,you have to take your business elsewhere.So, if this mistake is common(which is scary) it's unfortunate because they will lose a lot of customers. It's dishonest and blaming it on a glitch or computer error is no excuse. She has really worried about this all weekend long and I tend to remind the bank manager of that. Many thanks for the advice!

[quakerboy]

8. A question for you

Given the situation as presented, can you think of any way in which this could be anything other than bank error?

[Chan790]

9. I don't know.

And candidly I was expecting and dreading that question. I went to good length to not render judgment because there is a lot of information here I don't have, including information that isn't necessarily known to the client like the specific policies on how and when and why fees are assessed. Disclosure law requires us to provide you with when and why fees can be assessed, not when they are assessed. We give you a laundry list and charge virtually none of them...but the list is long enough that most people won't read it.

It's very possible that as unfair as those polices might be that under the fee guidelines of the bank, the fees are legitimate. Though...I don't see how, going by the policies of my employer. Even then, often they get waived and written off as "good will"...that is, "we want to keep this client, they generate enough business that it's not worth standing-ground on a $35 fee."

Bank errors tend to be human errors and most fee systems are automated to keep people like me from simply not charging them. If I don't charge them at the window, only infrequently does oversight catch them; conversely, if the system auto-charges them and I waive them, they exist, there is a record of them and I can be called to explain why. The way these fees get charged at the branch level in cases where the system might not auto-charge is that I can fill out a long manual-process form, send it in and charge them. It's not like an errant keystroke, doesn't happen by accident. To be clear, there are plenty of scenarios where it is necessary to manual-assess fees that are legitimate and yet would not be assessed automatically but there is also a lot of people being overly-strict in order to charge legitimate but unnecessary fees. For example: The system we use does not charge NSFs on shortfalls under $5 so the computer doesn't auto-charge them, I however have discretion to charge them manually if you do it habitually.

[romantico]

12. No

She had plenty in the account to cover the checks she was wrote.Even before her social security check went in, she had enough to cover her checks.It's the overdraft fee's that have really taken a huge chunk of her balance out and she has more checks to write but is afraid to do so.Of course, I have going through my mind this is how banks make their money so are they now just gonna do things like this and wait for customers to call them out on it so they can cl,aim it was an a bank error and apologize?

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Already good advice here. I will agree that you should go in to

the bank, don't call. I have been inundated with offers for some sort of check guarantee thing that will keep me from ever having a bounced check for $5 a month (well, that is this month---future who knows). I have never bounced a check, so I continue to refuse. I wonder if this is some sick way to sell this option, just start making mistakes on your account until you give in.

[Chan790]

10. One more thing...

Key phrase tomorrow is "I want to opt-out of Regulation E." That's the permission to charge you many but not all overdraft fees and overdraft coverage (which is not the same thing as overdraft protection)*. They have to explain which ones they can still charge you. (Pretty much they can't charge you the ones on debit/credit-card transactions but can charge the ones on personal checks.) The downside is that those charges are now declined at the point-of-sale which can be embarrassing in a restaurant or out socially. Once you do that, they're going to offer you overdraft protection which she might want to consider purely for peace-of-mind reasons if she decides to stay with them.**

*-OC is when they decide they will pay a debit despite insufficient funds but assess a fee. OP is when you sign up for a program where they link your check-account to a savings account, credit card or line-of-credit and if you overdraw checking the debit is automatically charged to the overdraft account instead, usually with a much smaller fee such as $5 or $10 for the transfer or a monthly fee to carry the service.

**-It's up to her but it's not a bad deal if she actually uses it, especially still using checks. The problem with checks being that people don't often cash them quickly and it becomes possible to overdraw your account if you think something has been cleared/cashed and it has not. ACH (auto-pay, e-check, direct deposit, direct withdrawal) and automatic debit-card charge is a godsend because it's instant. I tell my clients that unless they have to use checks or they're a business, to avoid the checkbook.

[pitohui]

11. if the checks are bouncing someone stole her money

as others say go in person and of course you'll need a new bank, in theory we have fdic insurance but if your account is drained it will take up to 2 yrs to get the money back

meanwhile she cannot use that bank or deposit money there or even more will get stolen

close the acct ASAP and make sure fica deposits the money only into the new acct, what was in the previous acct SOMETIMES they clear it up in days but i've heard up to 2 years to get the money back

[romantico]

13. No

No money stolen. We do not see any odd charges or large amounts withdrawn that can not be accounted for.That's the weird thing thing. Bank statement shows she had plenty in the account the time. Like I mentioned, one check that bounced was for $10.

[marzipanni]

14. Is this a big bank

like Chase, Citi, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo?
You might glean some good information in this article and website about switching to a community bank or credit union-

http://www.bundle.com/article/The-Move-Your-Money-movement-Should-you-bail-on-big-banks-8435

http://moveyourmoney.info/

[mtnester]

15. Make them show the exact time, including the hour/minute, the deposits and

debits were made. Banks are sneaky. I at 4:00, there hits a deposit and two debits (checks) Many banks will sneakily apply the checks before the deposit, thus creating an overdraft situation...mind you, the money was "there", they just applied it in ann order to create the overdraft.

This could be what happened at some point in the process

[Curmudgeoness]

16. Update please. What happened? nt

[rucky]

17. Standard operating procedure.

They see the checks going through and the deposit coming in, so they run the biggest check first, then the others, then the fees, then (what's left of) the deposit.

They may waive one of the overdraft charges, if there's no history of this happening.