Before I start this, let me say I fully understand that banks are businesses. As such they need to make money. I'm not that stupid (usually). What follows is our experience with what once was one of the few decent banking institutions left in the US.
We were looking for a new bank last year after getting sick of what Bank of America was doing to us (another bank of crooks, but that's over and done with). We had heard fantastic things about Commerce. My in-laws have been banking with them for years, and even though they had just been acquired by TD Bank, they were supposedly one of the better banks to go to. There are tales of how Commerce was always helpful and great at resolving issues so we were all for that. We opened our new account and hoped that would be it for a while.
Problem one began when Commerce's system merged with TD's late last year. It was on the major media outlets that the system merge ate many customer's direct deposits at the time, but what also seemed to have happened were phantom overdraft fees. We did not overdraw our account, as their own statements showed, but were charged for a few overdrafts. We went to our branch and the assistant manager quickly took care of it. She agreed that we did not overdraw and returned the fees. An error of some sort caused the fees to be returned twice, but was corrected the following day. Well looks like TD is also all for keeping their customers happy in the hopes that people will remain their customers. All was well for several months.
This brings us to the past few weeks. We started getting overdraft notices like crazy. We do monitor our account balance on their online banking site daily and never saw our balance hit zero before the first $140 charge. It was this false charge that dropped us below 0 and forced 2 more charges. Again we did not overdraw before the fees that caused the other charges. We went to the branch again and a new person (the helpful one apparently no longer works there as I have not seen her since..guess helping people isn't in the TD business plan so she had to go) told us that there were charges at the time that would have dropped us below 0 so we got hit with fees. Now these charges are in different places on our statement then theirs and on ours we did not overdraw, but on theirs it seems we did. Also, these charges were pending, as was a transfer that is supposedly instant according to TD's own information but it's more profitable to hold those long enough to rob people of a few fees first. The fees added up to almost my wife's entire take-home for that week. We did some research and found the proper government agency to file a complaint with. After the feds stepped in, we received a letter from a VP at TD explaining that they DO NOT CHARGE overdrafts for pending charges. We already knew this was a lie, but the letter also notified us that we had received half the fees back "as a courtesy". Isn't it funny that when we catch them stealing from us they return half their ill-gotten gains "as a courtesy"? Where was the courtesy when we first found out about your thieving policies that you like to lie about? Anyway, we figured that was probably as good as things could get and started looking for a new bank. Frankly we didn't feel like bending over for round two, but seeing we were approaching the month's end, we needed a valid checking account to pay the rent so we had to ride it out for another week or so.
This brings us to the beginning of May. Rent's paid so we can seriously consider bailing out on the thieves before they do it again. But first I had to check the mail...what's this? Another $140 in overdraft fees. Let's check the online banking. Again we did not go under zero before their fees, but saw there were 2 more fees coming. It looked like once again we were being charged for pending charges so with our letter saying they don't do that, we went straight to the branch manager. Now she was apparently aware of us and was less then pleasant, asking us where our ledger was. It seems TD doesn't trust their own computer system as much as they do our handwritten record of charges. Isn't that what online banking is for? We went back and forth, all the while biding my time. She printed up her version of our transaction statement which again did not match the one I had printed from their own online banking system just 20 minutes earlier. We pointed out the record of "available balance" and how it did not go below 0 until their first fraudulent charges. She said something about that number not including the pending charges. Well, then it's not "available" now is it? That number is something they just made up I guess to help collect more fees. She explained that they do this "as a courtesy" so you don't have to be embarrassed by having your card declined. Well lady, I have other cards so I'm fine. You know what's more embarrassing? Explaining to the power company and the phone company how my payments will be late this month because my bank stole a small fortune from me "as a courtesy".
This was my moment though. I asked very clearly if that number includes pending transactions. She said no. I asked if that meant the overdrafts were caused by pending charges. She said yes. I then repeated the question, asking if she's saying TD charges overdrafts on pending transactions and again she says yes. Then I pull out the letter from her upper management that says they DO NOT CHARGE for pending transactions. Oh did her attitude change then. We had caught her company in a flat-out lie. A lie that meant they had stolen another $200+ from us. She said she'd have to contact the woman that sent us the letter, which I understood as I'd likely have done the same thing to confirm its accuracy and said she'd call us in the morning.
The next day I had a call from her saying that the fees would be returned and we would be removed from their program "as a courtesy". That was it. We got our money back again. but as a great man once said "Fool me once shame on you...fool me twice...you can't get fooled again". We went to TD and pulled our account. We're going to give a Credit Union a shot. Supposedly they are better so we'll see.
We were looking for a new bank last year after getting sick of what Bank of America was doing to us (another bank of crooks, but that's over and done with). We had heard fantastic things about Commerce. My in-laws have been banking with them for years, and even though they had just been acquired by TD Bank, they were supposedly one of the better banks to go to. There are tales of how Commerce was always helpful and great at resolving issues so we were all for that. We opened our new account and hoped that would be it for a while.
Problem one began when Commerce's system merged with TD's late last year. It was on the major media outlets that the system merge ate many customer's direct deposits at the time, but what also seemed to have happened were phantom overdraft fees. We did not overdraw our account, as their own statements showed, but were charged for a few overdrafts. We went to our branch and the assistant manager quickly took care of it. She agreed that we did not overdraw and returned the fees. An error of some sort caused the fees to be returned twice, but was corrected the following day. Well looks like TD is also all for keeping their customers happy in the hopes that people will remain their customers. All was well for several months.
This brings us to the past few weeks. We started getting overdraft notices like crazy. We do monitor our account balance on their online banking site daily and never saw our balance hit zero before the first $140 charge. It was this false charge that dropped us below 0 and forced 2 more charges. Again we did not overdraw before the fees that caused the other charges. We went to the branch again and a new person (the helpful one apparently no longer works there as I have not seen her since..guess helping people isn't in the TD business plan so she had to go) told us that there were charges at the time that would have dropped us below 0 so we got hit with fees. Now these charges are in different places on our statement then theirs and on ours we did not overdraw, but on theirs it seems we did. Also, these charges were pending, as was a transfer that is supposedly instant according to TD's own information but it's more profitable to hold those long enough to rob people of a few fees first. The fees added up to almost my wife's entire take-home for that week. We did some research and found the proper government agency to file a complaint with. After the feds stepped in, we received a letter from a VP at TD explaining that they DO NOT CHARGE overdrafts for pending charges. We already knew this was a lie, but the letter also notified us that we had received half the fees back "as a courtesy". Isn't it funny that when we catch them stealing from us they return half their ill-gotten gains "as a courtesy"? Where was the courtesy when we first found out about your thieving policies that you like to lie about? Anyway, we figured that was probably as good as things could get and started looking for a new bank. Frankly we didn't feel like bending over for round two, but seeing we were approaching the month's end, we needed a valid checking account to pay the rent so we had to ride it out for another week or so.
This brings us to the beginning of May. Rent's paid so we can seriously consider bailing out on the thieves before they do it again. But first I had to check the mail...what's this? Another $140 in overdraft fees. Let's check the online banking. Again we did not go under zero before their fees, but saw there were 2 more fees coming. It looked like once again we were being charged for pending charges so with our letter saying they don't do that, we went straight to the branch manager. Now she was apparently aware of us and was less then pleasant, asking us where our ledger was. It seems TD doesn't trust their own computer system as much as they do our handwritten record of charges. Isn't that what online banking is for? We went back and forth, all the while biding my time. She printed up her version of our transaction statement which again did not match the one I had printed from their own online banking system just 20 minutes earlier. We pointed out the record of "available balance" and how it did not go below 0 until their first fraudulent charges. She said something about that number not including the pending charges. Well, then it's not "available" now is it? That number is something they just made up I guess to help collect more fees. She explained that they do this "as a courtesy" so you don't have to be embarrassed by having your card declined. Well lady, I have other cards so I'm fine. You know what's more embarrassing? Explaining to the power company and the phone company how my payments will be late this month because my bank stole a small fortune from me "as a courtesy".
This was my moment though. I asked very clearly if that number includes pending transactions. She said no. I asked if that meant the overdrafts were caused by pending charges. She said yes. I then repeated the question, asking if she's saying TD charges overdrafts on pending transactions and again she says yes. Then I pull out the letter from her upper management that says they DO NOT CHARGE for pending transactions. Oh did her attitude change then. We had caught her company in a flat-out lie. A lie that meant they had stolen another $200+ from us. She said she'd have to contact the woman that sent us the letter, which I understood as I'd likely have done the same thing to confirm its accuracy and said she'd call us in the morning.
The next day I had a call from her saying that the fees would be returned and we would be removed from their program "as a courtesy". That was it. We got our money back again. but as a great man once said "Fool me once shame on you...fool me twice...you can't get fooled again". We went to TD and pulled our account. We're going to give a Credit Union a shot. Supposedly they are better so we'll see.
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