Advice about a bank charging to many overdrafts?

I am helping my boyfriend with his financial troubles. Im pretty good with money but he is really bad with it.





His bank is national city, and he is always getting overdraft fees, because he thinks he has money in his account but it hasnt gone through yet.





Thats not the question and i know that he is in the wrong here. One day he went to the bank to deposit cash, he asked the teller woman how much he would need to put in his account to cover all pending transactions. she said something like 122 dollars. So he put in a little more than that. A week later we look at the account and there is $600 in overdraft fees. As soon as we noticed he went in to talk with the bank manager about the issue. The bank manger said that it wasnt the tellers responsibility. I think thats crap, my bf was asking his financial instution about his money, they should be able to give him reliable answers and be held accountable.





Now we have a letter in the mail from collections saying we owe the $600, we disputed the claim, but what do we do now. The bank wont even talk to us about it anymore because it is at collections.





Also as a side note. The young woman teller who messed up the first time, also messed up one day when we were in the drive through; every month we deposit money into our landlords account, sign the deposit slip from us, and put the money in there. with out question the lady sent us the accound balance back to us...i think thats wrong!!





Any thoughts, i dont know what to do about it any more, were tight on cash and to pay the $600 would take a couple months, and i feel its not totally his fault.


Advice about a bank charging to many overdrafts?
Bank policy will be not to refund charges unless it is a bank error. In my opinion, it was an error if the teller gave you a bad number. The manager had full capability of refunding the charges, but they are horribly pressured by upper management to resist refunds. In fact, manager bonuses are frequently given a little bump based on fee income. When I was a manager and several charges caused multiple fees, I generally refunded all but one fee. You would have needed a manager to listen and use common sense and human decency. There aren't many. Now that it's in collections, you aren't going to get anywhere with them.





One basic problem is that no matter how much he deposited, I believe the fees would likely have hit. Unless the deposit was made the same exact day of the purchases, they will get you. Even if the charges are still in a pending status.











Advice about a bank charging to many overdrafts?
It is totally your boyfriend's fault. He needs to learn basic personal financial management and become an adult.
You need to not deal with that bank but call and ask how to get a hold of corporate.Go above there heads to get this taken care of.Do not be rude but be professional tell them what happen-how it happen-when it happen send all copies of what you have (by fax) keep a record of every person you speak to.Keep going until you get answers they have the power to wave this $600 fee.Also it is possible the window clerk gave you the information that at that time was available her .What happens is it some times takes days or at least hours for late charges to fully show up,but once they do they are suppose to let you know .So I would make darn sure he was not getting notices and throwing them away because $600 in late fees takes a long time even at 35 a pop.I hope you have copies of all the things in his account right,checks withdrawals deposits? If not you need to get that and make sure when the fees got applied make sure no other out standing checks got bounced in that same time frame.Any how go to corporate be nice and they might be able to help you.Then take over your banking and do not allow your boy friend to do this again.Good Luck
Excuse me, but how do you expect a teller to know about all of your outstanding checks? Banks don't have a magic lamp that tells them your boyfriend wrote seven checks. They do know of any outstanding electronic transfers that have been approved but not yet cleared. For instance, he used a debit card, the transaction is approved but not yet debited from his account. Those a teller can see. But checks??? How would they know about those? The mistake the teller made is thinking your bf was smart enough to understand this.
Most likely what happened is you deposited your money after the business day ended (remember this isn't the bank hours). So you will be charged fees for all the pending items. Problem is fees are not added in until everything post (basically till midnight). So the teller was correct. They can only see what the system is telling them.





The problem is you didn't repay the debt when it was negative from all the fees and now it is at collections. Basically once there the bank can no longer help you. Pay the agency the debt asap. Hopefully his credit won't take to much of a hit, but at this point odds are it is destroyed.





He can probably try and start building good history again with one of those 2nd chance accounts. Think B of A offers them. Otherwise not much can be done other than pay the debts.
Only your boyfriend knows what items are outstanding. That is, items such as checks or debit card purchases that he wrote or authorized but have not been presented to the bank for payment. The bank, much less a lowly teller, will not know about these. She was not the one to mess up.





If this account is in collections, beware. If it is not paid promptly, your boyfriend's name could be reported to ChexSystems, and if it is, good luck on him being able to open even a savings account or even be a signer on someone's else's account for up to 5 years at almost every single bank in the country. In other words, he's blacklisted.





I know that NSF fees are stiff. And not only that, but most banks, including any other bank he may switch to, even debits items presented for payment from his account from highest to lowest in order to generate more of them. But the fact remains that if he had been more responsible, kept an accurate register, and would not spend more than what he has, then he wouldn't have even been charged a dollar.





Your boyfriend needs to find a way to pay this bill. BEFORE sending them any money, have him request from the collection agency that no reports about this be made to ChexSystems and the like, and if it already has been reported, to have it removed. Get this agreement in writing BEFORE sending them a check. After this is taken care of, have him verify that nothing was reported by having him check his ChexSystems report at www.consumerdebit.com.





Additional Information





Just because it has been a week since your boyfriend used his debit card, it doesn't mean that all the charges he made have POSTED to the account. That takes a few days for most merchants, and some merchants take their sweet time doing so.





If the account is in collections, then that means the account has been charged off. In other words, the bank already closed it.