The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
M&T Bank stopped fucking me over, yay! (RESOLVED)
Daedalus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
EDIT: RESOLVED. See page 2
Okay. So, for a host of reasons, I decided to move my money out of M&T Bank (which I started using because it was the "official campus bank" for my college or some such) and into SEFCU, a local credit union.
So yesterday, I went down to the bank and told them that I was closing my account. The teller made me a cashier's check for the balance of my savings and then told me that I'd used my check card recently and had two pending transactions on my checking: two trips to Price Chopper (supermarket) totaling to $17 or so combined. I told her to leave enough money in the checking to cover pending check card transactions. I then remembered that I'd put $20 worth of gas in my car at the Mobil down the street the other day and paid with my card, so I asked if there were any pending transactions from ExxonMobil on there. She told me that the Price Chopper stuff were the only ones, so I figured that the ExxonMobil stuff must have already cleared, since it happened like last week. I take all this money and bring it over to SEFCU and deposit it.
So, on a worried hunch, I check the M&T Web Banking thing today and sure enough, my current balance is at -$20, and there was the ExxonMobil withdrawal.
So I immediately throw on my shoes and rush out the door and drive into town (I'm lucky I didn't get a speeding ticket, in hindsight) and withdrawal $20 from SEFCU and bring it to M&T and manage to deposit it just before close of business today (which is at 3:00, apparently). I am then told that I'll still get overdraft fees for my negative balance. This is aggravating but understandable, I guess.
They then tell me that I will in fact get three overdraft fees, one for the Mobil stop and one each for the Price Chopper stuff, since their policy is to put the $17 I'd left in my account to cover the Price Chopper bills towards the $20 gas stop. So I'm out $35x3, or $105, not just $35. I then get very upset and explain that even if the gas bill (from last week, mind you) somehow came in in the middle of the night, I still specifically told the teller to leave money in the account to cover the Price Chopper charges. One overdraft fee would be understandable, but three is obscene. Not only did the largest withdrawal not show up yesterday, but I had the money for the other two already in the account, and I brought the $20 as soon as I could see the charges. They give me the old "there's nothing we can do, blah blah blah" and I leave, since they're closing.
I don't make a whole hell of a lot of money here, and $105 is a serious chunk of a paycheck. Do I have any recourse? The overdraft fees haven't yet shown up on my online statement, but I'm guessing that when they show, if I just don't pay them they'll rape my credit rating or something. But this is seriously unfair; I'm getting the impression that they're trying to clip as much money as they can since I'm moving to a different bank. Is there anything I can do here? I don't think going back to the branch and pleading my case is going to help; they don't seem to give a damn once they found I was closing my account.
Okay. So, for a host of reasons, I decided to move my money out of M&T Bank (which I started using because it was the "official campus bank" for my college or some such) and into SEFCU, a local credit union.
So yesterday, I went down to the bank and told them that I was closing my account. The teller made me a cashier's check for the balance of my savings and then told me that I'd used my check card recently and had two pending transactions on my checking: two trips to Price Chopper (supermarket) totaling to $17 or so combined. I told her to leave enough money in the checking to cover pending check card transactions. I then remembered that I'd put $20 worth of gas in my car at the Mobil down the street the other day and paid with my card, so I asked if there were any pending transactions from ExxonMobil on there. She told me that the Price Chopper stuff were the only ones, so I figured that the ExxonMobil stuff must have already cleared, since it happened like last week. I take all this money and bring it over to SEFCU and deposit it.
So, on a worried hunch, I check the M&T Web Banking thing today and sure enough, my current balance is at -$20, and there was the ExxonMobil withdrawal.
So I immediately throw on my shoes and rush out the door and drive into town (I'm lucky I didn't get a speeding ticket, in hindsight) and withdrawal $20 from SEFCU and bring it to M&T and manage to deposit it just before close of business today (which is at 3:00, apparently). I am then told that I'll still get overdraft fees for my negative balance. This is aggravating but understandable, I guess.
They then tell me that I will in fact get three overdraft fees, one for the Mobil stop and one each for the Price Chopper stuff, since their policy is to put the $17 I'd left in my account to cover the Price Chopper bills towards the $20 gas stop. So I'm out $35x3, or $105, not just $35. I then get very upset and explain that even if the gas bill (from last week, mind you) somehow came in in the middle of the night, I still specifically told the teller to leave money in the account to cover the Price Chopper charges. One overdraft fee would be understandable, but three is obscene. Not only did the largest withdrawal not show up yesterday, but I had the money for the other two already in the account, and I brought the $20 as soon as I could see the charges. They give me the old "there's nothing we can do, blah blah blah" and I leave, since they're closing.
I don't make a whole hell of a lot of money here, and $105 is a serious chunk of a paycheck. Do I have any recourse? The overdraft fees haven't yet shown up on my online statement, but I'm guessing that when they show, if I just don't pay them they'll rape my credit rating or something. But this is seriously unfair; I'm getting the impression that they're trying to clip as much money as they can since I'm moving to a different bank. Is there anything I can do here? I don't think going back to the branch and pleading my case is going to help; they don't seem to give a damn once they found I was closing my account.
Daedalus on
0
Posts
You're cancelling your account, so you may be screwed, but this is the best way to go about getting the charges reversed.
I'm fairly certain that the branch manager may have been the one who closed my account for me yesterday. If not, there's still only six people who work at that branch and they all saw me kinda flip out and yell at people today when I was told the bad news.
BBB might be a good idea, though. I'll look into that.
To split hairs... you are responsible for ONE of the overdrafts, as it was your fault. They are just being assholes for the other two.
you don't have much wiggle room on the single od charge getting reversed, as you already closed the account.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Oh, I know. Like I said, one overdraft (even though I brought the $20 down as soon as I saw the charge) would be understandable, if aggravating. But billing me for all three seems like it would border on bank fraud in any sane legal system (which I may not necessarily be in).
These are bullshit charges, and there is no reason for you to pay them, and there's really no reason for you to go in starting from the position of "well, I suppose this one fee is fair." No, it's not. It's bullshit.
At least, I can hope.
Now to wait for the other shoe to drop.
I *do* agree that its bullshit you are paying all those overdraft fees though... My only point was that logically you can get out of 2 of them.. but by what logic can you absolve yourself of the third one? You agreed to such terms when you got the account...
Personally.. i would try and get them all waived , since you did make a good faith effort to get money in the account to cover... and it took a long time for the debit to show.. all I'm saying is that they are fully within rights to get you for the overdrat on the $20.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
On a side note, anyone else remember hearing about some kind of rules where banks can only charge you fees that actually cover the costs of the overdraft/whatever? Cause I guarantee it didn't cost them $35 extra to cover a $20 overdraft.
However, they're trying to fuck him over for no other reason than because they can, so they don't deserve one goddamn cent.
if you can't get the bank to waive a fee to consolodate, or as a first time this happened, then I dunno.
As said before, you closed your account, why would they still attempt to please you? If they won't reverse the 2nd & 3rd charge... then maybe the threat of a complaint is worth it.
its a toss up if the BBB will do anything, because they have no sway over the bank legally... its just a group of businesses that agree to have a single complaint / resolution lookup.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
So you went to the bank, and a bank employee told you that there were two transactions going through.
So you left enough money for them.
And then you found that the employee was wrong, and therefore had given you the wrong information.
And now the bank is trying to charge you for the employees mistake?
On the one hand, I'm sure that they have some system to keep that legal on their side.
On the other, I'm sure that it is a very fuzzy system to keep that legal.
At the very least, I doubt they want the negative publicity that could be brought against them, because then they'd most likely have to change their policy regarding similar cases, or lose even more business, which would end up costing them not only customers, but also money from the cases like this where the bilked person won't stand up to them.
When you buy gas, the station charges $1 or so to your card, to make sure its valid. They *might* put a hold on a block of $50 or so as a potential future charge (this is removed right away)
At some point after you are done, the system gets around to charging you for the actual amount used at the pump. it could be a day, it could be a week or more.
A really savy teller might have looked at your transaction history and saw a $1 gas charge, but no followup charge, and reminded you of this fact... but from the OP description, these people are not at the top of the banking skillset.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
It's also not exactly his mistake if the charge wasn't posted to the account.
And the problem isn't even that he's paying for the gas overcharge. The problem is that they drew from the $17 he specifically told the employee to leave in the account to cover the other charges to pay for the gas, but since it wasn't enough, they charged him for that overcharge, and then the two other charges which the $17 was there to cover.
Still, I'll give it a few days to be sure.
I'm not suggesting anything here, mostly I'm just curious.
Yes, yes, and quite a bit, until he paid it off.
I'm almost certain that it would fuck up my credit rating; I've heard of people who've had overdue movie rentals that have fucked up their credit ratings.
I do believe that credit agencies just buy the debt off of M&T for less than the actual amount. This would mean M&T would "lose" money, except that I only owe them money in the first place because they said so; it's not as if I got anything out of it. So it's more like my bank and a collections agency gang-fucking me.
I wonder how long I have?
As a reference, when I was fighting a bullshit claim from Blockbuster, their collection against me reduced my FICO score by 2 points. Sure, it's a reduction, but it wouldn't have made any considerable difference in any loan I tried to take out.
As for the rest, there's a good reason to go to the bank and say "I will not pay any of these overdraft charges" instead of "one of these is fair." It is far more likely that they will attempt to work you over... moving you from zero to one, is more favorable than moving you from one to three.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Actually, I got the loan just fine. It wasn't until after the car was purchased that the issue was taken care of (Blockbuster finally admitted fault and removed the mark on my credit). My interest rate was not effected because of it either. It really comes down to what the problem is exactly, and who the issue is through. Debts are debts, but who they're through can make a difference... i.e. student loans, and medical bills tend to have less of an effect than a credit card that hasn't been paid in 3 months. :P
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
I've got the feeling that, to a creditor, this situation would look like "you overdrew your account for $96 and then just left it".
And I already tried the "I will not pay any of these overdraft charges". I got a "we'll send your ass to collections". They're doing everything in their legal power to fuck with me.
So fuck that; I'm going to start telling people not to use their bank. I figure if even one person decides to get a loan at a different bank rather than M&T because of hearing how they're fucking with me, I've cost them more money than they've cost me. Doesn't help my situation, but it sure would make me feel better.
or at least search for said past article on the subject and see if they yield any tips
Nothing yet, and I don't think M&T is a member (it figures), so I don't have much hope. Still, I'll wait a week to see if anything comes of it.
Somebody I talked to suggested filing a complaint with either the New York State Banking Commission or the Attorney General's office. Anyone think that either of these are a good idea?
I actually worked at work on Saturday. Also I went out on a date with a real life girl.
Can you like, permanently break the forums?
You know, at this point I might for the hell of it. I've pretty much mentally written off the $96, so I might as well piss them off as much as I can in the process.
I mean, it can't hurt (me), right?
As long as you're completely honest and forthcoming there shouldn't be anything they can do about it. After all, the bank isn't arguing "it didn't happen", they're arguing "it did happen, but due to the way the system works it's your responsibility", right?
Yeah, that's pretty much it. I guess that's what I'll do: pay them the $96 so they don't fuck up my credit rating, write to my two local papers, then when I get back to college, I'll write to that paper, too, since M&T Bank is the "official on-campus bank" there. (Incidentally, the president of my university just happens to be on some high-paying advisory board to M&T Bank. Odd coincidence, huh?)
Good luck
I ask only because I've had many over-draft fees from Suntrust down here in Florida simply waived when I explained the nature of the balance confusion (in this case, a similar scenario).
It may just be a "catch the right person on the right day" sort of thing, but if you haven't spoken with someone yet, I'd give it a shot.
Banks process transactions that are pending from largest to smallest. That way, they get the most money in overdraft fees. In your example, you had $17 in the bank, so, they process the $20 gas first, leaving -$3 plus -$35 = -$38 then, they process the next one (~$10) towards the -$38 balance and it becomes -$48 + -$35 and so on.
Lawmakers haven't fixed this yet for consumers, so write your representatives and tell them you think this is BOWLshit.
Another way banks fuck people is by immediately processing debits, but waiting however long to clear deposits. It's not because their system is slow on depositing money, for chrissakes, it's because they CAN. So people spend money on payday, thinking their check has been deposited, and end up with overdraft fees. There is a law that makes them take the money out right away, but it lets them take longer on deposits, so they do. If the law changed, they would have to change as well.
Again, that's why I say call, write, email and etc, your representatives and make sure they know this is a hot issue. You better believe the banks are doing the same to protect their interests...it's up to us to protect OURS.
Those fucking dillhole bankers and their lobbyists (or however you spell it)
</rant>
I talked, on the phone, to both the teller that handled my call and her supervisor. I'm sure that either of them have the authority to reverse the fees, but they refuse, probably because they 1) can, and 2) don't care about keeping me as a customer, since I told them I was leaving before this whole mess started.
Plus they just seem mean and disagreeable, on a personal level. Or perhaps they don't like me. Whatever. In any case, I'm writing off the $96 and warning others about this sort of thing.