Overdraft fees...

bagelpirate

So I accidently raked up $130 in OD fees through WaMu.

I just wasn't watching my account until it was too late, then all those small credit purchases that take 2-4 days to go through fucked me over.

Would a bank manager do anything for me? Or would I just be wasting my breath?

I can't afford the -$130 right now

tardcore

It wouldn't hurt to ask.

Shadowfire

bagelpirate wrote: »

So I accidently raked up $130 in OD fees through WaMu.

I just wasn't watching my account until it was too late, then all those small credit purchases that take 2-4 days to go through fucked me over.

Would a bank manager do anything for me? Or would I just be wasting my breath?

I can't afford the -$130 right now

Go in, and speak to the bank manager. Simple mistake, never done it before, yadda yadda...

Generally, in this case, they'll wipe the charges, or all but one of the charges. Not always, but usually.

After this? Pay better attention to your finances, and go with a bank that doesn't pull this sort of shit.

Trowizilla

Yeah, go talk to them. I did this once (wrote a rent check before a deposit cleared, whoops) and the bank teller just wiped out the charges. If you're polite and don't make a habit of it, they'll usually work with you.

Seattle Thread

The first time I had an issue with OD fees at WaMu, I spoke with the account manager at my home branch and they cut me a deal. It was basically a get-out-of-jail-free card, as subsequent ODs weren't given the same clemency. But be nice and explain the situation, and they should be more than happy to help you out.

Sam

They usually end up charging you 20-30% of what they would have. The reason they rack up like that is because overdrafts are tagged as 30 bucks per item, or something ridiculous like that. So a pack of gum, 75 cents will run 30, as will the mocha to go, the copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged from the used bookstore, etc. Whether the item runs 10 cents or a hundred dollars, it's going to be the 30 or so per item. Another thing that fucks you over is foreign ATM fees- these often come in a long time after the withdrawals, and for some reason get posted all at once after the delay. So your overdrafts of 1 dollar per withdrawal can add up in multiples of 30...

If you just explain that you made a slight error calculating a few small purchases and really are in need of your finances at the moment, they usually end up only charging one overdraft fee and returning the rest.

So try and get 100 back out of that 130

Andorien

If you can, I would recommend getting a credit card, link it to the bank account, and setup overdraft protection with it. Really damn handy. Don't actually use the credit card though, unless you're sure you can handle it.

JNighthawk

No experience with WaMu, but I had ~$450 in OD fees overturned from Bank of America. I overdrafted like 12 times over a weekend, with them all being posted on Monday. I called the first time, told them I'd been a good customer for 2 years and have never had any problems nor late payments on my credit card with them. They said there was nothing they could do and I said fine, but I won't be paying it off. A few weeks later, I got a call from them about it and they asked if I was going to pay it off. I said the same thing I said before, and this time they said they'd cut the fees in half. I told them that that wasn't good enough and plenty of other banks would like my business. After a little back and forth, they said they'd waive all overdraft fees this one time as soon as I paid off the actual debt of ~$250. I said done deal, paid it off a few days later and all OD fees were reversed.

Moral of the story: be a good customer, and stick firm with what you want.

Thegreatcow

Well seeing is I work for the mu that is wam, I can shed some light on this situation.


First things first, if you want any fees reversed, you have to go the branch you opened the account at, wamu recently enacted a policy that basically states that only your "home" branch can have the authority to reverse your fees (it comes out of their budget). (If you opened it online, then you have to go through the 1-800#, and god help you if you do)


2nd. Well this is probably going to sound pretty bad, but the decision to reverse fees rests solely with the manager at that particular branch. Nowadays with all the bad crap happening with banks and the general market, budgets have tightened considerably and fees are no longer reversed as easily as they used to be.

You're basically at the mercy of the manager, if they want to reverse the fees they will, but most managers will take the approach as such:

"Was it Bank Error?" Y/N
If N, Decline request
If Y, reverse immediately

Rinse, lather and repeat.

And do be careful about saying you're not going to pay the fees, if your account remains negative for 45 days, it gets charged off and reported to chexsystems, and that basically means you can't open another account for about another 5 years or so.

@jnighthawk - I'm guessing you must have been contacted by the collections team because only they would actually negotiate a deal like that, you certainly would not get it from a manager as they definitely don't have the authority to do it. You certainly lucked out there!

So yeah, to sum up, good luck and hope you have a manager that's willing to waive some of them for you. . Sadly, the only overdraft options we have atm are basic overdraft protection (you can go neg up to a certain amount), overdraft transfer from a savings account only, or an Overdraft Line of credit, which, unfortunately can only be now attached to a Platinum account (needs a 10k minimum balance)

bagelpirate

Well i'm about to go try, thanks for the advice.

I'll let you know how it turns out