Trying To Avoid Suck

[Pezzle]

I'm tired so I'll make this long story short n' summarized:

IS 210 DOLLARS TOO MUCH FOR A BLOODY FUCKING OVERDRAFT FEE?

BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WACHOVIA CHARGED ME. KTHX NOW I CAN'T PAY MY RENT, OVER 8 FUCKING DOLLARS.

I feel better now. How do I talk to them on the phone about this without getting sucky?

[MrSunshineState]

$210 for one return? Or did that return cause others to return? I am not sure how your bank's policy works, but since I work for a bank I know our policy backwards and forwards. Was this over a paper check or electric check? Or was it over a debit card purchase?

I am confused as to how a large fee like that could have been charged.

[sms001]

IS 210 DOLLARS TOO MUCH FOR A BLOODY FUCKING OVERDRAFT FEE?

Yes. Yes it is.

Is this a one time fee for one overdraft, or did they cascade several ISFs (pick which incoming debits to pay first to insure they would get the most fees)?

How do I talk to them on the phone about this without getting sucky?

You've taken the first step - venting a little. Other than that, make sure you have all your facts straight, deep breath, and remember that the person you'll be talking to didn't personally take your money, and will be far more likely to help if you're pleasant to deal with. Think of it as an acting job where if you're good you'll "earn" 210 bucks

I'm assuming they've made a mistake or gotten greedy somewhere along the line here. Look over your account information before you call - you might have to suck it up

I'm not too impressed with Wachovia right now myself - they're playing Scrooge with portions of my MIL's accounts that they shouldn't, and it's making her crazy. Pretty high-handed tactics, too.

Good luck.

[MrSunshineState]

Yes. Yes it is.

Is this a one time fee for one overdraft, or did they cascade several ISFs (pick which incoming debits to pay first to insure they would get the most fees)?

.

That could be it, or Wachovia could have a different policy on paying checks as my bank does.


Example 1 (Bank I work at)

If you have $20 in your account and a check is presented for $100, the check is not paid. It is sent back as NSF and the bounced check fee is assessed to the account. It is the merchant/payee's choice as to whether or not they want to present the check a second time

Example 2 (Other banks)

You have $20 in your account and a check is presented for $100. The check is paid, bringing your account to -$80 and then an overdraft fee is assessed.



If what happened to the OP was the latter, that would make sense. I can't in my wildest dreams see how $210 can happen over one overdrafted item unless it was a paid check that brought the account negative.

[Jacen]

210 is too much for a single fee, your right. My bank charges 48 Australian Dollars, roughly (It's been a while since I overdrafted)

But as has been said, there could be many factors. Computer glitch, multiple bounces, Check paid and fee attached, etc. In the case of the first one, it will probably be easily reverses... and the second two... Well, as long as you don't start blaming the bank

[Pezzle]

It appears that maybe I had check card holds that didn't pop up right away.. sometimes if a cashier puts things through as credit without letting me know this could happen. Looks like my paycheck just didn't bloody clear in time. >< Ah well.

[Jester]

How do I talk to them on the phone about this without getting sucky?

I would suggest that you don't.

I would suggest you go talk to them in person.

Be calm. Be inquisitive. Ask them to show you exactly how this happened. If there is some error, politely point it out. If the error is yours, accept responsibility. Either way, explain your situation calmly and ask if there is anything that can be worked out.

Me, I am very glad right now I am with the awesome credit union I am with. Thanks for reminding me of that.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I would suggest that you don't.

I would suggest you go talk to them in person.

Be calm. Be inquisitive. Ask them to show you exactly how this happened. If there is some error, politely point it out. If the error is yours, accept responsibility. Either way, explain your situation calmly and ask if there is anything that can be worked out.

Me, I am very glad right now I am with the awesome credit union I am with. Thanks for reminding me of that.

My Mom and I went through that and we have a joint account with Walk-All-Over-You (as I call it.)

Where we run into a problem at times is that we'll have one balance online, yet the phone can have a different amount (Mom doesn't carry a check register, but will manually subtract checks/card purchaes/withdrawals from the online balance.)

And we've had more than one occasion where we've ended up with overdrawn more than $300. Usually this is due to my mom's addition and subtraction being a bit off.

One thing we've learned . . . we can't always go by the available balance online, especially if there's a check that hasn't cleared. Even if you have check card holds, some merchants don't automatically take the money out when the card is used - it comes out 3 business days later.

Then, we have to remember to add it any checkard purchases at the Quik Stop, because for some unknown reason they don't show up on the check card holds. Sometimes they're slow taking the money out - I've seen a week go by before it a purchase from them will show up.

It's confusing. But take Jester's advice and go in person to discuss the issue with them.

You may not get all of your money back (we did one time, but that was several years ago) but maybe you can at least find out the order in which everything hits the bank and clears out.

Which is also confusing because it's not always in order of purchase. Some merchants are slower than others when it comes to taking their money out - so try keeping a ledger or use your check register for all purchases.

Good luck and try to keep your head.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I second the credit union thing.

I bounced a check for the first time in my life a couple years ago. It caused a bit of a bad domino thing to happen. Racked up some fees. Credit Union fixed it and then gave me 600 bucks free overdraft protection. And an apology. I'm going, "Listen, please don't apologize, this is entirely MY fault!" They were like "Oh, well, we should've had you set up on the overdraft protection, because this wouldn't have happened if we had."

Yeah, my credit union rocks.

That fee is a bit steep. If this is not a habitual thing, they may work with you if you go down there and act rationally.

[CancelMyService]

A co-worker of mine had something similar happen, she had a check she cashed get held longer than the usual time (it was over a certain amount and for some reason bigger checks take longer to clear) so she ended up getting freight trained with overdrafts. She explained to the bank what happened and they waived the fees as a one time courtesy. I found out that most banks will waive fees at least once for unexpected oopsies, but if you have it happen on a regular basis they're not going to bail you out every time.

[gregmaddux17]

That does sound quite excessive. Most overdraft fees are usually around $30 or so and certainly not $210.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

That does sound quite excessive. Most overdraft fees are usually around $30 or so and certainly not $210.

Walk-All-Over you charges $35 for overdraft on checkcard purchases and $35 for checks.

Which, with my account if a check for say $25 comes through and there's say $20 in the account (even though what I may see online will say $40 for example) the bank pays it and I'm -$5.00

Then they tack on the $35 fee and then it's -$40.00. All for one check.

I'd love to switch banks, but my Mom doesn't want to so I'm stuck.

Second, it'd be a real pain to have to move the direct deposits as well.

[Ayleah]

Wachovia was the worst bank I ever had, but it was a long time ago when I was in college, and I've heard they got much better about this... They couldn't have been any worse, but I guess that now it's all electronic, and customers can use online banking, people have much better ways of monitoring their account.
I used to get paid on Wednesday. I'd deposit my check Wednesday afternoon (after the 2pm cutoff), so it should have posted Thursday, or Friday at the latest. They were really slow about crediting deposits. One weekend, I bought a dress on Friday afternoon for a sorority event, and come Saturday I see I'm in the negatives. I had enough to cover the dress, so wtf? Turns out, they didn't credit my deposit until midnight Friday night (saturday), and they made absolutely sure to process all my transactions for the day BEFORE they processed my deposit from 2 days ago, so I had three NSF charges.
The mother of all fits ensued. They gave me all this crap about how "that's the way it's done, delay caused by the other bank that wrote my paycheck, blah blah blah.". They finally agreed to credit me the NSF fees back. Fine, whatever. I'm suspicious now.
Then they did it again, this time, holding my deposit until MONDAY and making sure to process all my weekend transactions before the deposit (from the previous Wednesday). This time they refused to credit my NFS fees because they had "already done it once", and I was supposed to know that it was perfectly acceptable for a credit to not hit until they darn well felt like it. So I closed my account, so they put my name on that awesome little list that says "BAD CUSTOMER, NO BANKS FOR YOU!". It took me almost a YEAR to get that resolved. I had to get the BBB involved, and I wrote for my college newspaper, which helped. The bank was the only one within walking distance of the campus, and it turned out there were a LOT of other students they had tried to screw the same way. They lost a bunch of accounts from campus that year due to this.

[georgiab]

Same thing happend to my sister ..her bank charged over 300.00 in overdraft fees because they said she went over by 11.00 dollors. She was very upset...She went to the bank an they couldn't even figure where she actually went over...Even better is that my sister ALWAYS calls the bank to make sure she knows how much she has before she uses her debit....it always matched what she knew she had in her account.....so it set us back BIG TIME because we are roomates and neither makes that much.So I feel your pain..really I do.

[qaxons]

I have a friend who goes through a some bank with initials that's also "north" (of what?). They REGULARLY fuck her over with overdraft fees, and she refuses to switch her account because of her mom "needing access."

Not to mention her mother regularly takes money from her for stuff she doesn't owe her... but that's OT.

I keep telling her she needs to switch because, when you pay on Friday, during business hours, with a local paycheck, there should be at least a partial credit to the account. Several times recently, usually when she actually goes in to the teller (why?) to deposit, instead of the ATM, the check doesn't clear until Wednesday of the next week. Do they expect her not to buy anything for nearly a week while they take their sweetass time to clear a paycheck?

That's what I like about my bank. You make a deposit, a percentage is immediately applied, with the rest usually applied less than 24 hours later. It's saved my arse more than once. Several times I've gotten gas, noted I was in the negative, and deposited money. They cleared the deposit before the gas, and all was well.

What gets me is when you over by a penny (I've done this!) and they charge you the overdraft fee... It's a freaking PENNY! I have more of those lying on the floor/desk/horizontal surface than they probably have in their drawers.

So, yes, that's pretty extreme overdraft fees, but check their policy, and the way they applied the charges... See if you can find a way to get some of them reversed. A lot of banks (around here at least) will deny the charge if you've overdrawn. I guess unscrupulous ones will let you keep digging yourself into a hole.