Just to vent…

Nothing stresses me out more than money… Especially people taking my money. So when I logged onto my bank acct and saw a much lower balance than I expected, my heart stopped. Upon closer inspection my bank had assigned $140 in overdraft charges. FOR WHAT?! I caught myself screaming… Upon even closer inspection, it was for nothing. My bank account had not gone negative, not one single time. And I am being charged 5 overdraft fees?!?! If I wanted to spend $140, I could have found LOTS of ways to do it, a payment to my bank for nothing is not one of them. So I made a call… Very mad. Ready to switch banks. Again. But I calmly say “Yes maam, I was just charged $140 in OD fees. Can you tell me what those charges are for?” So after the exchange of lots of personal information to verify that I was not calling pissed that someone else’s account had been charged $140 in insane charges, she begins to look. And look. And a few moments into her looking she responds, “Do you mind if I put you on hold for a moment?” “Of course,” I respond, knowing that this is a good sign. Several minutes pass before she comes back on. Finally she picks up and says that the charges that were assigned the fees were a $40 ATM withdrawal, a $5 debt, a $7 debit, and a few other very small charges(as she reads them off I am adding up what each item ended up costing). She states that none of these charges ever made the account go negative, (really?! As if this was news to me…). She then gives some explanation for the error such as “a merchant may have double charged, or over charged, or a larger amount was being held at the time the charges were made and since then that charge has “fallen off” as they call it. So what she can do is refund the amount to my account for me. AS IF SHE IS DOING ME A FAVOR… To which I reply “Yes. Please do. Thank you.” Both she and I know that her excuse is lame. I can log on and see holds on my account that have not yet gone through. I know exactly how much I am being charged by each merchant. I have seen merchants double charge on accident to my account before. I have also seen my bank catch that error immediately. I actually had a merchants refund go through and post on my account BEFORE these charges were made, and the refund alone was enough to cover all the charges… And, no, those were the only pending charges. There was nothing “larger” that fell off. But, maybe it was an honest mistake. A computer glitch, we shall say. After all, nothing is error proof. All I know is when an error is made in my favor it is quickly caught by them. When it’s made in their favor, it would go totally unnoticed. Such as the time that they deposited our paycheck in the “wrong account.” Oh, wait- that happened twice. And one of the times, they couldn’t find what account it had been put into until Monday. They weren’t even sure of who had deposited it and seemed slightly panicked. “What is the name of the teller on your slip? What branch was it?!” I could hear the worry in their voices… “I will not be charged any OD fee for any charge if my account goes negative while you find my check, and I will be paying bills and shopping this weekend,” was my warning that time. And they did refund any fees that I got that weekend. And there was the time that they forgot to give me my cash back that I requested when I made my deposit. I noticed it several hours later. They did that to my mom too… There are other things that they have done too. They have just slipped my mind. I log on this am and the $140 charge has gone through. I call again. I am reassured that within 30 minutes I will see the refund. Ugh. When the system works, it works. When it doesn’t, they have control of your money… What can you do?... I almost asked for interest. But since it wouldn’t have been much for them holding $140 for a day I didn’t waste my time… The credit has finally gone through and I feel marginally better. Until the next mistake. All I know is don’t mess with my money. It’s a good way to get me really mad. And if you don’t fix it, my response is always the same “No, thank you. I’ll just wait til my husband gets home and let him handle it. He ALWAYS gets what he wants.” And 9.5 times out of 10, he does… ;)