wachovia fiascooo [Sep. 4th, 2009|06:42 pm] dionysian





It started when I recieved the first overdraft notice, a tiny flash went through my very preoccupied head "huh? i thought my account was fine? whatever, i fuck up a lot, maybe i did something stupid this month, oh well... have to live with it, its just one fee." Maybe it really started when Wachovia called to leave a message to call them back, and when I did call back, they refused to take my relay calls, citing policy not to take 3rd party calls.... In any case its been an interesting two days between me and Wachovia.





Wow. It sounds like many people from the site I posted this to are skimming about 3 words per paragraph in this entry and making wrong assumptions.



••••THIS IS NOT A SIMPLE NSF-whining STORY. WACHOVIA GENERATED FALSE BALANCES AND SL APPED FOUR NSF FEES ON ME WHILE I HAD A POSITIVE BALANC E.



A little preface: Wachovia and many other banks including Bank Of America have a nice little setup going on in which they treat all

weekend transactions as holds on your account that won't be processed til the end of the first business day. So if you've made several purchases, all of them within your balance at the time of purchase, and then you overstep and make one purchase that will overdraft the account, they practically rub their hands in glee. They reorder all of the transactions to go in from the largest purchase amount to the lowest, "high-to-low." This effectively ENSURES that the largest purchase, regardless of when it was made, will deplete the funds. It doesn't stop there though, each transaction afterwards no matter how small or if its from the same place/same day, will get its very own separate $35 overdraft fee; my largest overdraft fee total was $500, yep. They dont care if that $8 you spent at the tail end of a hectic sunday night filling up your gas tank so you could make it home was THE one that overdrafted the account, all they are concened with is that the total amount overdrafts, and then they reorder everything to maximize their profits. The official stance of the banks on this high-low practice is that they assume that the largest purchase was the most important and cite unlikely situations such as a mortgage payment or a car insurance payment. Get real. Besides, they don't even begin putting things in high-to-low UNTIL the account is overdrafted, they dont do this all the time to 'help' customers. And who are they to decide that my $8 gas purchase that overdrafted was not an emergency and essential purchase, moreso than my $20 lunch from the day before when I had the matching cash on hand in my account. I have a debit card.



And by the way if you are thinking "hey, what about overdraft protection?" Yes, I thought it was a great idea too until I actually signed up for it an used it. (by the way, Wachovia essentially pressured me into it; I was down at a branch begging them to take off the overdraft fees that occured as i mentioned above, and the bank officer said... "well, i'll take them off but only if you sign up for overdraft protection today" and i sighed and said OK, it was the $500 in NSF fees!) I don't have a savings account with wachovia to link up to, so I opted for the wachovia credit card overdraft protection. God. I felt like I got my ass wiped by a Nigerian scammer. Wachovia's idea of overdraft protection was to set me up with a credit card with a $300 limit, link it autmatically to the account. If I was ever so much as about to overdraft, they would funnel $100 of credit into the account. Nice of them yes? That credit card had a crazy interest rate. If I was about to overdraft, I certainly can't afford to pay back $100 plus the $10 fee for just having the automatic cash advance deposited in my account. You couldn't control it like "hey no, i dont want it, i'll pay a $35 fee instead, thanks!" there was no control over how much would be deposited either, it was a minimun of $100 increments. The card was a terrible credit card too, high interest rates, late fees, no grace period, etc etc.



But boring you with details is not the intention of my story, the details above are relevant and hopefully enlightening, but the real story here is that Wachovia essentially pre-emptively charged me an overdraft fee on my perfectly positive balance. Essentially their system manipulated my account and stole money from me.



Back to the beginning of the story: I got the first overdraft notice and didn't think much of it, I _do_ regularly misjudge my finances over the weekends. With the first notice, I was most likely busy with cassie, set it aside in a mound of paperwork and didn't consider it a priority to open; I knew what it was, an overdraft notice. But then I got 2 more in the mail and Veikko saw them and glowered at me, and I stammered some stuff about I'lll go talk to the branch and see if they'll work with me. The next morning, Wachovia called and left a message. I followed up calling them back, I was a bit confused, why would they be calling? they've never called for overdraft notices before: never, and much to my shame they happen semi-often. Upon being transferred to a representative, the rep immediately said "I'm sorry, we dont take these kind of calls, we dont accept relay calls." I immediately asked to be transferred to a supervisor.



The supervisor confirmed it and refused to relent. She very helpfully told me to call the TTY number, because thats "what we have for deaf customers." I asked her, "Do you even know what a TTY is? Do you even um know what it takes to make a TTY call?" I explained, as politly as I could that it was a very archaic piece of equipment and it required a land line; neither of which I have. I'm comfortable with using relay to use regular customer services. Even if I were to use an online-tty application, I've found that many TTY numbers are "unmanned," and theyre unlikely to be answered, especially not at after-business hours (1800 wachovia is 24hrs, and I was calling at 5pm in the evening). Essentially, TTY numbers are there for show pretty much; even 5 years ago when I dragged out my TTY to call some businesses' and gov't agencies' TTY # I got no response, even over a few tries in a couple of days. So I told her it wasn't really an option for me; what else could she suggest I do?



She suggested that I email wachovia through the website's email. Sure, this might be a good option if I had any INFORMATION about why they were calling me. In the absence of that it would take probably several emails back and forth between me and the email customer service to resolve the whole thing whereas if I had been allowed to use the phone customer service the exchange would fly back and forth fast and be done in one sitting. Email could perhaps take days depending on the speediness of wachovia's email reps' responses.



Then she said I should go down to a branch office and sit down and talk to the branch manager. I almost wanted to facetiously ask her if wachovia banks provided childcare. Because if I went down there, my two year old was coming with me, and it would be unpleasant for all three of us. Me trying to watch her with one eye while writing back and forth, cassie for being bored/restless or whatever the hell other mood struck her that would inevitably interfere with our discussion, and the manager for having to deal with that situation.



Finally I tell her that this is blatant discrimination. I am being denied access to a service that is available to other paying customers if they are hearing. God forbid I had an actual financial emergency such as placing a stop-payment or clearing a "suspected card theft" flag from my account triggered by irregular purchases (which happened to me once and i only found out when my card was being denied for a purchase, had to call and verify identity etc to un-freeze my funds). The supervisor informs me its a new policy enacted June 12, 09. No wonder. We both agree that she should make a report on this call and send it to headquarters including the recording of our conversation.



I begin doing web searches for wachovia denying relay calls, and found that the National Association of the Deaf filed a lawsuit on Aug 24 09 for this very same thing against Wells Fargo (Wachovia is now essentially the same co as wells fargo, just haven't rolled out name changes yet) The lawsuit asserts that Wachovia is discriminating and not complying to the ADA and wants to get a legal ruling to force wachovia to accept relay calls from deaf customers. I promptly send off an e-mail detailing my denial of service experience to the e-mail contact and recieve a reply that evening, they are putting me in touch with the lead lawyer for the case. It may be a class-action suit, still not sure.



So that night during cassie's naptime, I explained the whole 9 yards of the events above to Veikko and one way or another we got into an argument about something and he muttered that I should be more financially responsible and maybe I wouldnt have to be dealing with overdraft fees. I argue back with him that wachovia SETS people up, they have extremely deceptive business practices and there have been class action lawsuits against them for these overdraft fees, settled out-of-court. (While searching for info on lawsuits about wachovia and discrimination I found plenty of suits against them for overdraft fee stuff). He insisted that if theres no leglisation against it, too bad, its all known rules even if its "unfair," and it then becomes *my* responsibility to track my purchases to the cent to avoid any of those fees, if I break their rules its within their rights to fine me etc as they are essentially covering my purchases. I fume at him and decide to go sit down with my online account and study exactly how the overdrafting occured.



I pull up my account, read it line by line, date by date, recollecting each and every purchase leading up to the first overdraft, retracing my steps of the day in terms of financial purchases, tallying up all of my withdrawals against my deposits. Dunkin donuts latte for $3 on my way back from the park, cassie's pediatrican co-pay, $7 dinner with sandy & carl at stevi'B's, a $25 thai lunch on my day "off" saturday.... in the end all adds up to a positive $75 balance. And then out of the blue, after a $2.50 purchase, I get slapped with a NSF overdraft fee of $35. Undaunted, my account still has $40 in it, a positive balance. Yet wachovia's system has gone into gleeful overdrive, rearranging and putting in transactions from high-low to tip the odds in their favor and fill their coffers. But my purchase amounts are still not enough to completely wipe out that $40; a $25 purchase, two $6 purchases; I should have at least $2ish left in my account. But for those 3 purchases, I was slapped with a NSF fee for each, for a total of $105 in fees alone; bringing my balance to $-102.ish. Why $-102.00 and not $-105.00 you ask? Because upon posting the fees, the system finally acknowledged that i had $2ish left in my account and applied it to the negative balance. Amazing, they managed to take every last cent!



I print out a screen shot of my account and tromp over to veikko (deeply immersed in WOW and miffed with me to boot) and say something like "so you think they don't set people up? look at this, see if you can explain it to me." he pondered over it, got intrigued, came to my computer to look at the online transaction history himself, etc. and finally agreed, the bank made a giant mistake. i was set up the fees. (it was very hard to not do a gloaty dance.)



At some point afterwards, it finally dawns on me to OPEN up and look at the overdraft notices that I got in the postal mail. I peer at the one that came first. It says my account is purported to have $0.14 at the time of the $2.50 transaction that the overdraft fee occured (if you recall, it had $75.) Innnteresting. the second overdraft notice says that my account had $0.68 at the time of the transactions. Very interesting, my "balance" went UP.



To add insult to injury I cannot call Wachovia since I am deaf and they won't take my calls as I described before, so I resolve to drag myself and cassie down to the closest large branch office first thing when we wake up.



I stomp into the Wachovia office with four very large overstuffed tote bags, not including cassie in tow with *her* doctor's bag. I knew we were going to be there a while so I brought a bag of toys, books & games, a bag of snacks, the diaper bag, and my laptop in its own bag. Immediately a bank officer at the kiosk walks up to me asks what I need help with. I manage to get her to understand "Overdraft fees" since I didn't want to dump my bags to write just yet and I see her eyes glaze over, "another one of those fee-whiners," and she points to a standalone kiosk with an officer at it. I've done this before, they reserve offices for "really important" stuff like making a loan, opening accounts. Everything else, the customer stands at a kiosk in the middle of the very large open space and talks with the reps there. "No. I need to see the manager in an OFFICE," I declare in writing. I get an incredulous look. She shows the paper to the manager who walks by. I immediately amend the note with "I did NOT want to bring my two year old down here. i am deaf, and wachovia's phone customer service would not service me, therefore I am here and I need to write back and forth. I cannot watch my toddler and be sure she doesnt run around and bother people while I am focusing on our conversation."



The manager reads the note, nods wordlessly and walks off to his other client. Sure enough, I chase cassie around the bank and ward her off of everything she shouldnt be touching. He comes back and TRIES to get me to come to the kiosk claiming something like "i'm already logged in there, i can help you there." I repeat, "No, we need to go into your office. I'm sure you can sign in there too." He opens and closes his mouth a few times and then heads to an office and I come in with cassie, close the door, put a chair in front of it to deter her from opening the handlebar lever knob and unpack our bag of toys and set her up with a few snacks within easy reach for her. Then I pull out my hefty macbook pro and set it up on his desk.



I open up TextEdit and begin typing to him. I explain that I certainly did NOT want to bring my toddler here and essentially their discriminatory phone service forced my hand. And in my experience writing back and forth adds a good amount of time to any kind of complicated discussion. I was not about to manhandle my daughter in an open space and be a nuisance to other customers. The hurriedness and distraction would add to our communication barriers.



I finally begin to explain to him what I was there for. At the word, overdrafts, his eyes glaze over wearily. Let's look at your account and see where you overdrew.



He pulls up wachovia's version of my account on a 1980s VAX machine lookalike program. I play with cassie while he studies my account. Then he smiles patronizingly. and writes to me, "You have overdraft fees because you overdrafted with a $40 CVS purchase." Which, legitimately, was true, it was my very last purchase and had my balance been kept straight it would have overdrafted and been my only one, but FOUR other earlier overdrafts were erroneous. "Go back futher, I say," He looks and ponders. He is the branch manager.



He tells me that he sees no problem. I then pull up my screenshot of my account for the past 30 days and a scan of all 3 of my overdraft notices and I begin trying to explain things to him line by line. He then tries the broken-record trick, writing slowly exactly what he wrote a few minutes ago, "You overdrafted when you made the $40 purchase at CVS and your balance was depleted." I ask him, may I speak with the manager, and he reminds me, he IS the branch manager. But he will refund the fees as a complimentary courtesy, would that be okay? I say yes very much so. He arranges it on the computer and signs off on it. Expecting me to leave, he sits back and says, anything else? I say yes, we're going to try this again. Cassie was enjoying herself playing and staring through the glass door at people, I had time.



I put the paper copies of the three overdraft notices sent to me in the mail and my print-out of my account transactions and with a giant marker and making side-notes on the papers, I very painstakingly showed him how the first overdraft notice "balance" of $ 0.14 does not match my posted balance from that day last week which showed $ 75. Then I asked him how in the world could you charge me overdraft fees when i had the funds to cover it, pointing to the three overdraft fees after that one when clearly I still had cash in the account. I asked, what happened here, you must know something that could explain it, it looks like outright stealing to me. That startles him and he uses his calculator and paper and tallies up everything, getting a $75 positive balance at the time of the first overdraft. Finally, he admits, he cannot explain it. But its okay now, he refunded the fees! I ask him, "so the money is back in my account, all $175 of it?" He checks again and says yes, the funds are there now and shows me my new balance on the VAX-like program.



I smile and brighten, "Great! thank you so much, I really appreciate you doing this, refunding the fees helps a lot." He stands up as he is reading smiles and tries to do the smarmy thankyougoodbye gladtobeofhelp handshake. I pluck the paper and begin writing again. "Can you help me with just one more thing please?" He nods cheerfully as most people in service jobs are trained to do, "Would be happy to." I then replied, " I'd like to close my account and I'd like my funds in cash." The crestfallenness was palpable. "Yes, I can do that."





And by the way, I never found out why Wachovia had called me and left a message to call back; when I asked the branch manager about this he replied he didn't have acess to that information and suggested I call. I had to take a deep breath before I reminded him about the phone situation. He suggested helpfully that I email about it. I guess I will never know, I no longer have access to email through my wachovia account since it is closed. Maybe, just maybe, it was someone calling to explain a giant computer glitch and they would correct it asap.







