Playing Eenie Meenie Miney Moe with my bank accounts

[Midorikawa]

I keep an old bank account with my bank back in Texas, because my car loan is through them, and because if I needed money from my parents, it's an easy way to get it (like the bank closure incident a few weeks ago). All my billing goes through my new bank, and I only keep about 20 cents in the old account, just to keep it open.

Until a few days ago, that is, when I got an email telling me my account was overdrawn by some $60. After some investigation, it was the gas company, who apparently just randomly decided to draw from a different account than normal. So I called them, and spent 30 minutes on the phone with them. They walked me through cancelling some old outdated auto pay method they used, but left active for my old account. Then stuff went about like The Titanic:

Me: So, what about the $35.75 you charged this account, and the $28 NSF charge due to your unauthorized charge?
CSR: Well, we've stopped it from happening again.
Me: ...So...what about the $65 some odd in charges you caused me?
CSR: You're responsible for that.
Me: No I'm not. You fraudulently charged that account. I demand you fix this.
CSR: Not going to happen. I did what I was supposed to, now you're supposed to pay for your service.
Me: I do. Every month. Every month since April 2008 when I moved to Utah, without fail, without late charges, and without service termination. You need to fix your fraudulent charges.
CSR: Nope. Anything else?
Me: Fine. I'll file fraudulent charges with the bank. *hangs up before she can say anything else.*

The call lasted about 30 minutes, total. Once I calmed down enough to manage calling the bank, I did:

Bank: <Texas based> Bank.
Me: Yeah, can you pull up my account? I've got a fraudulent charge I need to file.
*pulls up my bank account*
Bank: Sure. Can you come by to pick up the fraudulent charge form?
Me: Unfortunately, I've lived in Utah for 2 years now. Can you email it to me?
Bank: Nope, but we can snail mail it. *verifies my address*
Me: That works! Thanks!

Total call time with the bank: 5 minutes, and everything will be fixed once I get the form, fill it out, and mail it back. I wish <bank> had a branch here. They've been great since I first opened the account when I was 15, and have never once had a problem with them. :-D

[MaggieTheCat]

Man, I know the feeling. I still have an account up in Wisconsin at the bank that I've used since I was in High School. They're fairly small...they have more than one branch in various cities in Wisconsin, but they're not that big, and at the branch I went to, I knew pretty much everyone by name, and vice versa. They were a lot easier to deal with recently than our bank down here, when I was transferring funds from my account in Wisconsin into my husband's account down here for our new house.

Hopefully you can get this mess cleared up! That CSR you talked to the first time was really rude...even if there wasn't anything she herself could do about the charges, her attitude was inappropriate!

[Aut]

I hate having stuff on Auto Pay. More often than not, there's been unauthorized charges that have caused trouble. Makes some businesses mad that we won't give them our account info, but it's our choice. We once had T-Mobile take nearly $200 our of our account once. That was a long time on the phone between them and the bank, because you see, we've never had an account with T-Mobile.

[Mystic]

This is one more reason I refuse to use any sort of Auto Pay system. If there is a way to screw it up, they will find it, then blame you.

[ottid]

I'm guessing auto-pay would be the same as direct-debit?

I don't use it so that I am sure that I have the right amount of money in the bank, also have my accounts set up so they can't be overdrawn

[eltf177]

My mother keeps pushing me to get auto-pay, and incidents like this are exactly I don't want _anybody_ fooling around with my account!

[lupo pazzesco]

AutoPay, EasyPay, all that other crap annoys me. I hate when I have to call in over something on an account of mine, and get asked why I'm not enrolled, and would I like for them to enroll me? Um, no.

But why not? It's easy, convenient, and a load of worry off your mind, because you KNOW your payment is going to be taken out of your account the same day every month.

That's assuming I have the money in that account on the same day every month. with financial aid disbursement schedules, pay schedules, and random emergencies, it's best to let me pay as I prefer, and yet people dont' get that. Plus, the whole "Never pay a late fee" gimmick? I just set a reminder to pop up on my computer screen 5 days before my bills are due. Go into my account, schedule a one time payment, and boom. Done.

That, plus the horror stories like those I've heard here have pretty much ensured I'm never going to use autopay.

[LillFilly]

Oh yeah, they owe you I think, since they weren't authorized to take from that account.

I had a savings and a CD at my bank (CD you have to not touch for so many years or you get fined). I opened a checking and transfered $ from my savings to my checking for a purchase. Next statement the $ was still in my savings but I got a letter fining me for dipping into the CD early. Turned-out my bank ignored the savings account # and just picked the first account with my name that popped-up on the screen. Then they tried to say I'd authorized it! Uh, no, you needed my signature for that. They had to put the $ back, plus interest, plus the fine.

I love how they try to blame you for their mistake!

[i4wolves]

That is too bad that they did not fix the mistake. I have auto pay and one month my electricity bill was taking out of my account a week sooner then they should have. I have a signed contract that says that x amount will be taken out on x day. When it was taken out before my paycheck and before that day it caused my account to be overdraft. After faxing over my bank statement that showed that their mistake caused the overdrafts and nothing that I did they paid for their mistake they paid for the overdrafts.

Some companies will do the right think and fix the mistakes when the mistake is on them. Some companies do not care. It is too bad that your company does not care that it was their mistake that caused you to be overdrawn.

[Aethian]

See this is why NONE of my business is like that. All stamp and check for me.

[Midorikawa]

To be fair, I've used auto pay since I moved to my own cell phone plan from my parent's plan at 18, and only once had a problem, and that was during the Cingular -> AT&T switchover. I'm now 24, and problem number 2 comes up. This is why I use a bank that cares about me, not sees me as a cash cow, like certain other banks. In these cases, even if the company refuses to help, I just dispute the charges with the bank and they'll fix it. It's a sort of guarantee against idiocy like the rep I spoke with at the gas company.

[Merriweather]

This is one more reason I refuse to use any sort of Auto Pay system. If there is a way to screw it up, they will find it, then blame you.

Yep, I would love to save trees, move to a paperless world, have everything paid automatically without having to worry about it. But until companies begin to actually care enough to see it's done right every month, nope, I'll decline and do it the old fashioned way.

[Merriweather]

I'm guessing auto-pay would be the same as direct-debit?

I don't use it so that I am sure that I have the right amount of money in the bank, also have my accounts set up so they can't be overdrawn

Never say can't - I swear at times it just makes it a challenge for some people

Years ago (in the dark ages before you could pay bills online, heck, before there WAS an online) I had my credit card hooked to my checking account in such a way that should I write a check fo rmore than was in my checking account, money was put into the checking acount and charged to my credit card in $100 increments - therefore, in theory, making it impossible to bounce a check and incur outragous fees.

In theory, mind you. What actually happened was a customer (I sold craft products at demonstrations) wrote me a check for products. It bounced. (That's exactly why I had things set up as I did). Normally, money would be charged to my credit card, I'd be out the amount of the check bounced by my customer, but no fees. Well, just so happened that the computers were down that day, transactions were being done by hand, so no automatic transfer kicked in.

Meanwhile, I did my monthly grocery and neccessity shopping - on base. So at the end of the day I had one bounced check in my account, and I had bounced 3 myself on base. Only checks I've ever bounced in my life. And anyone military will tell you, that's the last place you want to bounce a check - highest fees, you get put on a black list that takes forever go get off of, and the actually military member (my spouse) is likely to get in trouble with his/her CO as well.

Luckily, this being ages ago and not recent, my bank realized the screw up was all their fault, including the checks I bounced at the base, as I had every reason to think I had taken all possible precautions.

My bank actually apologized to me, and contacted the shops on base to straighten out the rest - I even got a call from them stating my name would be off the black list within 24 hours, something of a miracle. And I never had to pay a penny to anyone in fees of any sort.

So all turned out right in the end, but moral of the story, never, ever say they can't

[Andara Bledin]

I've got about a half a dozen bills on autopay monthly, plus another half-dozen on annual autopay.

So far, I haven't had any hiccups. Hell, compared to mailed payments, the hassle is way, way less.

The only issues I've ever had as far as payments were all on one-time-only credit card payments that the vendor(s) in question had managed to foul up on their end. And it's never taken more than a call to them to have them talk to my bank to get everything squared away.

And as much as people seem to really hate Bank of America, they've taken very good care of me, including removing legitimate charges when I'd called in to have other issues dealt with.

^-.-^

[Midorikawa]

And as much as people seem to really hate Bank of America, they've taken very good care of me, including removing legitimate charges when I'd called in to have other issues dealt with.

Yeah...My wife was given a BoA credit card, when she was 17 and really too young and too inexperienced to know how to handle it. She was put in a sticky situation where her mom was set to lose her apartment the next day, she was a full time student, and only had the credit card. They of course promptly jacked her interest rate up to 25 or so percent, nothing she could ever pay off herself on that income. For this reason and others, I refuse to own any credit card. The only lines of credit I have open are the car loan for our Jeep, and the condo mortgage, and I'd rather keep it that way.

She's since been sent a letter telling her that she needs to either close her old account, or be charged for her checking account (wtf? who charges for a checking account? :-/)

That said, I have no more distrust of BoA than I do credit card companies and other big banks. I only trust USAA with my money because they've time and time again gone above and beyond for me with my car insurance.