I signed up for Wachovia's Way2Save program, which gives you 5% interest on your savings the first year. You can only deposit $100 a month into the account. The only other way to put money in is by account activity (paying bills, etc). So I scheduled a lot of $1 bill payments to my credit cards every day to try to get as much money in the savings account as possible.
Wachovia put a temporary hold on my checking account without telling me. There was no phone call, email, or online notification. So imagine my horror when I got emails from their billpay service saying they couldn't withdraw the money from my checking account and were reversing the bill payments. I had deposited several hundreds in cash (in person) into the checking account, so I knew it couldn't be because the funds hadn't cleared. And the bill payments totaled only around $200 anyway.
When I called, it turns out that Wachovia had put a temporary hold on my checking account, freezing the funds. No one was able to explain why, but they said the hold was gone. They weren't able to stop the payments from reversing.
The end result? My credit cards are charging me over $5000 in reversed payment fees (150 reversed payments * $39 average per returned payment, you do the math). In particular, Chase has canceled all my cards because of the multiple returned payments. I called my Chase small business card account, and the specialist at Chase said they could not do anything, or even waive *some* of the returned payment charges, unless I could get Wachovia to send a letter saying the returned payments were the result of bank error.
I called Wachovia, and they refused to do anything. Their stance is that it was not a bank error because I scheduled the bill payments, not them. There were no notes on my account (because I had talked to someone in bill pay, which apparently is a contracted out service, not part of their own system). They had no record of any hold on the account, and even if there was a hold, it wasn't their responsibility because I had scheduled the bill payments myself. They also mentioned deposit availability, though I pointed out that I had deposited cash. I'm going into a branch on Friday, but I don't think they will write anything for me either.
I haven't called the other credit cards yet. I'm dreading calling my other credit cards to see if they will waive anything. So in the end, I am stuck with this fiasco. At least Christopher's problem was caused by the same bank charging him the fees. They have the power to waive the fees. What happens when the problem is caused by a different bank, and that bank won't help at all, not even write a stupid letter?
I hate Wachovia. I don't have problems with it if the problems were caused by my scheduling bill payments, and there wasn't money in the checking account. I do have problems when the checking account says I have several hundred dollars available, I had deposited more than enough cash to cover the bills the previous week, and there is NO notification that a temporary hold had been put on the funds. How is that my fault and not the bank's???
Do you have any EEOB-type email addresses I could possibly use to write to the service departments at Chase, Bank of America, Discover, Amex, and Citibank?
Or any advice on how to handle the situation? Ways I can convince Wachovia to write the freakin' letter? Or am I stuck sucking it up?
The wildest thing about this is the idea that Wachovia would have no record of the minute-to-minute status of your accounts, including your deposits and when funds became available. You should go into a Wachovia and have a nice long sit-down with someone there, where you both go over the account item by item if necessary, until they have to admit that there is not a single reason those payments should have been reversed. After all, if they don't have a reason for—or even a record of—placing the hold, it should be easy to determine that you always had the funds necessary to cover your payments.
For now, keep this with Wachovia. It's on them to correct their mistake, and to provide you the necessary evidence you need to get your other creditors to reverse the charges and re-open those accounts. Unfortunately our Wachovia contact info is getting pretty dated (although now there's a Twitter contact), but maybe you can get somewhere if you EECB Wells Fargo. (Tell them you're a dirty telemarketer who wants to rip off old people and they should prick up their ears.)
For other Wachovia customers, you might want to find a less dangerous way to save your money. Tying it to bill payments is pretty risky, and you don't have to have an exceptional case like Susan's to wipe out your gains—a single error, whether by you or Wachovia, could easily do it.
(Photo: suburbandollar)
]]>If I was the OP, I would read through both documents, paying special attention to section IV of the latter. I would draw up my talking points, and contact Wachovia again for a resolution.
Good Luck!
]]>Once I understood that the Way2Save account starts at zero and you're only allowed to deposit $100 max each month, I realized that this scheme is total nonsense. This is not a proper savings or checking account. The whole point is to get you shift your purchasing from credit cards to their bankcard. I'm sorry but 5% APY on $600 (the average balance over the course of the year if you get to the $1200 max) is not enough money to get me to change my habits and tie my money up in something so complicated. Even twice that is not worth it.
It's just another one of those financial products that do nothing but enrich the bank. Thanks to this article, now I understand why the bank was so eager for me to sign up.
All I wanted was a nice normal account with a decent rate of return and this was all they had to offer me. It's ridiculous.
]]>One. Wachovia sure screwed you. Keep laying it on them. Share the agravation.
Two. $250 for 12 months is $3000. As you build up to this amount, the magic of compound interest gives you a profit of about $82.50 for a year's effort. Doesn't make sense to me.
]]>This reminds me of the guy that bought all of those pudding packs to get airline miles.
]]>@Bunnies_Attack!: She wasn't trying to get any free $ from Wachovia. The plan doesn't GIVE you a dollar, it moves $1 from your checking into your savings.
It was all her money, just getting moved into a higher interest account.
]]>Then you should know better. You made the semantic change from saying that holds are only an anti-fraud measure to saying it's for security. The latter is more accurate, since banks have more than just fraud in mind when they place a hold on funds. Your prior point is still incorrect. We have no idea why the hold was placed, who placed it, and they are reportedly unwilling to disclose any of that information to the OP.
They screwed up. Even assuming for the sake of argument that they didn't screw up in initially placing the hold, they screwed up in the aftermath, big time.
]]>If she was intended to put as much money in there as she wanted, then why would it be set up in such a way that only a dollar would go into the account whenever she made an electronic bill payment? Likewise, why would there be a cap on how much she could manually deposit into the account?
It seems pretty clear to me that you're supposed to put $100 in there a month and add a little after that via bill payments, not try to game the account by paying as many tiny bill payments as you can. Otherwise they'd just let you deposit as much as you'd like.
And since it doesn't explicitly say that she can do what she did, she would probably have been better served by avoiding giving the bank or her credit card companies any potential reason to screw her.
]]>I had a very similiar situation with Wachovia a few weeks ago. I got no where with either the bank management or the regular customer service person.
I went to their Twitter account and asked for help. It took 3 days, but they put me in contact with the executive customer service who refunded all the fees to my account. Talk to their twitter guys. They'll help you out.
]]>We don't allow guards at airports to strip off all your clothes, keep your clothes, set them on fire in front of you and beat you unconscious because you MIGHT be a terrorist, nor should we allow this.
This is a financial hate crime.
]]>At least we agree on your second paragraph.
]]>And I'd close your account once able to whether they clean it up or not, and further sue them for the $5000, their other fees, and attorney fees.
There should be a federal fricking law that once there is a situation where any fees are calculating above $100, they HAVE to call you IMMEDIATELY and work with you to stop it before it gets this far.
As we all know fees can hit accounts at thousands per second, so there is no excuse for a bank not to call you - they are supposed to have computer programs that trigger them to help their customers not harm them.
]]>If you dig, you can find out if a customer has been called for a fraud hold if it is currently in place. After it's lifted, I"m not sure if it's possible.
HOWEVER, in my experience, 9 times out of 10, the customer would end up NOT being notified. Why? Was it the banks fault? Nope.
It was the customers fault. They would change their home phone number and would not tell the bank. So...... when the bank called, it was an automated message sent to a disconnected number, "no answer" number, or wrong number.
I hated explaining to customers that they HAD to notify us of any changes so we could update their records.
Even had one crazy lady pissed because we didn't change her account holder name to her newly acquired married name.
Her: (yelling very angry) "How come you didn't change my name!? I"M MARRIED NOW!"
Me: (not impressed) "Ma'am did you notify the bank that your name changed"
Her: "No!"
Me: "Well... unfortunately ma'am, we don't have access to city, county, state, records of that nature, so it is impossible for us to know you got married and thus had a name change."
and it goes on and on.
My thoughts are..IIRC there are also some types of fraud alerts that telephone bankers can't reveal to the customer, that the customer has to be referred to the brick and mortar bank. IIRC, these were fraud holds. So perhaps the banker saw that but didn't follow correct procedure on directing the customer.
Not to mention there are a lot of things that can make money 'frozen' like the deposit availability. Or even if she went through a rather crappy gas station that placed a $100.00 check card hold on the account to make sure a $20.00 gas purchase cleared. Yes, they do that.
]]>@StanTheManDean:
Yes, at 5%. Also, my understanding is that deposit was an automatic transfer, but you got it--the OP really did this for the difference in interest on a couple hundred bucks.
The OP clearly doesn't understand the program. You CAN make transfers up to $100/month IN ADDITION TO the amount that is transferred for each transaction.
]]>@duffman13: Didn't work i mean, not didn't charge me.
]]>@GitEmSteveDave_Right: 1 Wrong: ∞: I tried something like that once on gas, filled up my car and then my wife's car for the same dollar amount, same station, same pump in rapid succession to see if it would work and not charge me the double transaction. It didn't.
]]>@mythago:
No, she does specify that it was hundreds--she had 150 reversed alone. My point doesn't depend on the exact number, in any event; I'd have written the same thing if it were dozens, or scores in any short time.
@Uncle Fluffy--No, actually I've worked with banks for a long, long time in a lot of litigation--holds are, by definition, for security, the banks or the customers, depending on the circumstances.
@ItalianScallion--ummm, that's a semantic quibble, the "game" is to "skirt the limit" as you put it. Tomato, Tomahto.
You've said that the OP was "abusing" the system, and that what she did was a "stupid idea." Would you care to elaborate as to what she did that was abusive or stupid?
If she's acting within the four corners of the agreements that govern her checking AND savings AND billpay accounts/programs, I think for you to say such things is, well... a pretty stupid idea.
]]>Stupid idea.
]]>Why they can't tell her why her account is frozen beats me. But SHE knows why. It's because she was abusing the system.
]]>She just tried following the banks as role models. "Good for the Goose is fit for the Gander".
]]>This is gaming the system in the same spirit as the banks reordering the debits largest to smallest to maximize overdraft fees.
]]>I get to New York for my New Years Eve trip and find that my Wachovia has been blocked. I can't get anybody for two days. I finally talk to their "risk management" group. In doing so, I find that they had "suspicion" that my Citibank check would not clear, so they blocked all of my accounts with them. They returned several automatic payments and refused to help me in any way.
Another two days pass by, the check clears. I call them and they lift the block. No apologies. No "we were wrong." Nothing.
]]>@Trick: The OP wasn't "gambling". There was nothing in Wachovia's documentation that said 'if we feel you are using the service excessively, we will freeze your account'. To say that she "gambled" is to say that it's perfectly expected and reasonable for a bank to jack you with your money for no reason and with no explanation, before, during or after.
If Wachovia thought her transfers were "frivolous" then why didn't they simply stop the $1 transfer bonus? There was no reason at all to freeze her account and then lie about it.
]]>@Michael Belisle: Sure. But we don't know over what period of time these were made. People are just pulling facts out of their butts so they can say "this chick deserved what she got".
]]>Paragraph 4: "The end result? My credit cards are charging me over $5000 in reversed payment fees (150 reversed payments * $39 average per returned payment, you do the math)."
Presumably, that means she scheduled at least 150 $1 bill payments.
]]>Truly, wanting to get the maximum $600/yr from that 5% savings account is the height of avarice.
]]>If every bank had to write disclosures taking into account what every person trying take advantage of something would do, it would be thousands of pages.
Like someone else said it appears the credit card triggered this and not wachovia. they were probably trying to figure out what nut would send 100 $1.00 payments and returned them.
]]>Greed gets you screwed every time. Wachovia should have honored it's program, but I also think that the amount of greed and playing the system here bought some well deserved karma back to the so called "victim."
]]>You say that there's no question that a hold is an anti-fraud measure. You're simply wrong about this. I'm not sure you understand the concept. Banks can hold funds for varying amounts of time for a number of reasons. If you deposit a check, the funds will be held for a certain period of time. If that check is from an out-of-state bank, they can hold the funds for a longer period of time. This is all laid out in the agreement you have with the bank. A fraud alert is another type of event that can result in funds being held. The OP doesn't specify, so it's not reasonable for you to conclude that a fraud alert is the only possible explanation for the funds being held.
The OP explicitly states that Wachovia will not give a reason for the hold. If this was a fraud alert, they should have, and most likely would have disclosed this to the OP.
]]>Call you attorney general and the controller of currency.
I'd also take them to small claims court.... DO NOT explain the dollar transactions unless Wachovia brings it up. The judge could misconstrue your plan as fraud.
They closed my account with money in it causing me to bouce checks ad auto payments and never communicated to me that the account was closed or sent me the money in the account.
That's your story and you'll stick to it.
If I try to make a third payment, for example when I got a dental insurance refund check I thought I'd send it to my credit card, but the online system wouldn't let me send another payment until the next billing cycle.
Of course paying your bills through Wachovia bill pay is different than using the credit card's online website. Perhaps they do not have a limit. It's essentially sending a check to the credit card company (either a paper one or more often an electronic one, they only use paper checks if you set up bill pay for a small company they can't transfer online.)
What would the credit card company do if someone sent them 100 checks for one dollar each?
I wonder if using the billpay like that violated the terms of the billpay service. There has to be something in the fine print that limits payments somehow.
]]>@craptastico: Here's the information I have via Citibank. The short story is that atm & teller withdrawals are fine and unlimited. It's when you start doing things like phone & online transfers that you run into the limits.
What savings and money market transactions count toward the limit?
Regulation D limits the number of certain types of transactions that you can make from your savings or money market account to six each statement period. No more than three of these may be by check. The chart below provides examples of other transactions which do-and do not-count toward the six-transaction limit.
Does this transaction in a savings or money market account... ...count toward the 6 transaction limit?
Online transfers from savings to a linked Citi account (such as checking) Yes
Outgoing online transfers made via Inter Institution Transfers or Online Wires Yes
Transfers made via CitiPhone Banking Yes
Transfers from savings to cover checking overdrafts via our Safety Check service Yes
Pre-authorized deductions by a third party Yes
Checks written from a money market account Yes
Transfers and deposits into a savings or money market account No
Withdrawals and transfers made at an ATM No
Withdrawals and transfers made in a branch via teller No
Please be aware that:
If you attempt to exceed the six-transaction limit, your seventh transaction will not be processed and you won't be able to transfer funds online until the next statement period.
If you exceed the limit three times during a rolling 12-month period, your savings or money market account will be closed. The balance will be transferred to your Citibank checking account, if you have one; if not, a check for the balance will be mailed to you.
It's important to track your savings and money market activity, which you can conveniently do online. This helps ensure that you do not unintentionally exceed the limit, which may occur if you regularly transfer money from a high yield money market account to your checking account, for example.
@treimel: But honestly, your example was not what happened here. Take a deep breath and go back and read the post:
1) Nowhere does she say she scheduled "a couple hundred one-dollary bill pays in a two day period". She says that she scheduled "a lot" of them "every day".
2) She did not stop her story with finding out that there was a hold; she went to Wachovia to find out what happened.
3) Wachovia denies there was a hold, then says if there is one, it wasn't their fault, plus, um, deposit availability! Nowhere was the OP told "that number of transactions triggers a fraud alert". At no time did Wachovia, including its fraud department, contact HER.
]]>Yeah, I've left Wachovia, as you might expect.
]]>I'm not triple posting--it ate the rest of my post. I want to point out to everybody that although this was a completely predictable outcome, I'm actually on the OP's side--just because she's clearly gaming the system doesn't mean she's not entitled to the transfers to the savings account. If it's within the rules, go for it. Moreover, Wachovia definitely should have alerted her, and is failing to properly explain it now. But, honestly, take a deep breath and think for a moment: if someone came to you and said, "I scheduled a couple hundred one-dollar bill pays in a two-day period and they put a hold on my account. What happened?" Your telling me that you *wouldn't* conclude it was a security hold? "hold" means security hold, incidentally.
]]>Reading this, it seems that the OP trigged the shutdown with the daily 1$ payments, going over and beyond what the account was ment to be used for. It's a poor move of Wachovia's part to shutdown without notification, but the OP almost pulled a fast one and should be held accountable as well for it.
(Not in the tune of 5K though)
]]>Again, the first thing that happens with anti-fraud is the hold, not the alert--otherwise, the bank would frequently be "alerting" you to an empty account.
]]>For the same reason I closed my last account with Wachovia years ago--they suck. Nevertheless, it is an anti-fraud measure, there's really no question about that--that's what "holds" are.
]]>@dragonfire81: This makes sense. Incompetence in contacting the customer + incompetence in dealing with the mistake afterward.
]]>Wachovia could have limited the number of transactions yes, but to say 150+ *frivolous* transactions is not excessive is not accurate either.
The OP may have not did anything wrong with the gamble but the returns will never be worth what the OP has lost with closed accounts and time having to deal with this.
All for a very small amount of interest each month?
]]>Some kind of unusual activity occurs on account ==> funds in account are automatically frozen by bank ==> customer realizes this and calls the bank to find out what's going on.
I think it was an anti-fraud measure and the OP has, unfortunately, been dealing with incompetent reps who do not have a complete and accurate picture of the situation.
]]>On the other hand, I would not try this because counting on *any* bank to do multiple (in the 100's) transactions that are frivolous in the 1st place is downright dangerous.
You see 1st hand what the consequences are for taking such chances for such little return.
]]>@Moosenogger: And really, what's the scam? That they will have to move one dollar of HER MONEY from one of HER ACCOUNTS to another one of HER ACCOUNTS?
]]>I think its the federal limit on online transfers between accounts (savings to checking, etc). I think the limit is 6 per month. However, if you see a teller or use the ATM than there is no limit.
]]>How did the OP deposit the cash? ATMs will place a hold on the deposit even if it is cash, since there's no way to verify the type of deposit instrument until the ATM is balanced a few days later. That could be the source of the hold here.
]]>If Wachovia was so worried about people 'scamming' them, then they would have set up some sort of minimum bill payment. They didn't, so they deserve to pay out the extra money. However, hind sight is 20/20, so when they realized there was a loophole, Wachovia should have informed the OP she had _____ days to change her billing cycles and changed the fine print for the program. NOT screw the OP and cost her thousands of dollars in "returned payment" fees (which they knew damn well was going to happen and just didn't give a shit).
]]>@Blueskylaw: In the absence of other information, I would assume that the hook is those "account services" that cause the $1 transfer. Say, if joining their Bill Pay program means you have to pay $15 a month for the service. Then the $1 per transaction is a way to lure people into signing up for Bill Pay.
]]>@treimel: I seriously get that a bank that takes legitimate actions regarding a customer's account ought to be able to explain what was done and why. I also get that normally that customers are alerted of "anti-fraud actions".
If Wachovia thought she was gaming the system, they could simply have said "We are not going to do the $1 transfer for those transactions" without touching the transactions themselves.
If Wachovia believed they were preventing fraudulent activity, they should have alerted the customer and, on discovering the transfers were legitimate, explained why they did it and corrected the problems caused by the hold.
What part of this is confusing to you?
]]>Am I correct in my understanding....
The OP made a series of $1 payments on several credit cards for the sole purpose of being allowed to deposit an equally small sum of money in a savings account?
]]>That's certainly a reasonable assumption, but it appears that they use a third party vendor for their bill pay service, hence the cluster-f that resulted.
]]>@uncle_fluffy: i didn't know there was such a thing as them reversing payments. once a check is cashed and cleared, it's done. i figured online payments would be the same, once it's gone from the account, it's done
]]>@FatLynn: I've never heard of this limit.. I do a lot of online banking, and usually transfer the funds to my CC to pay for my purchases right after I make them.
]]>You're assuming that this was an automatic anti-fraud measure. If that's the case, why wouldn't the bank say that it was such when the OP called (and called and called) to ask about it?
]]>@mythago:
Oh, also--you might want to check the scoreboard on your predictions: 5,000 dollars is what happens on planet earth.
@mythago:
You seriously still don't get that this was an automatic anti-fraud measure completely separate and apart from the silly savings program, do you?
@treimel: Perfectly clear on what "gaming" actually means. Seriously, a grown-up person would conclude that Wachovia set no limit on "account activity" deposits because they want to encourage "account activity" (particularly if there is an enrollment fee for things like Bill Pay).
A grown-up person would also conclude that if the bank didn't like what they were doing, it would cancel the program, set a limit or contact them and say "You can't do that". A grown-up person would not conclude that the bank would put a pointless hold on the account, then take it off, then be unable to explain in any way why the hold was there. "We did it to stop you from gaming the system"? Funny, I didn't hear that from Wachovia, did you?
]]>If you think the banks are going to "time" your sub-$1 transfers to trick you into paying more fees... wow.
No, it's plainly obvious why they do the "keep the change" program - they want to encourage you to use your debit card, because they charge the merchant fees every time you do.
I'm guessing the incentive behind this "Way2Save" program is to save money by processing fewer checks. Both programs also are intended to get you to do more of your banking with their respective banks.
Obviously these programs are intended to be beneficial to the bank, but that doesn't mean they're intended to be detrimental to you.
]]>@uncle_fluffy:
Where did I say "alert"? More to the point, for the alert to be effective, it first must freeze, no? Otherwise it's just a matter of, "hey, a bunch of suspicious tranactions happened. Your money's gone, but a t least we're telling you about it soon afterwards."
I agree with you to this extent, though-if this was (as I strongly suspect) a fraud prevention deal, they absolutely needed to notify her. Still, the hold really does have to happen right then and there.
]]>@mythago:
Still unclear on what "gaming" actually means, huh? Seriously, a grown-up person would know this was not going to work. And, lo and behold: it didn't.
]]>@tamaracks: Why is it excessive? Wachovia apparently granted a bonus for 'account activity' and didn't set a limit on that activity. I rather doubt this is because Wachovia is stupid; it's because they want to encourage people to use the kind of bank services that would generate the savings promo.
]]>Again, a fraud alert that alerts no one is not a fraud alert. They screwed up.
]]>@jik: No, spare *us*. Wachovia allowed two ways to pay into this savings account:
1) directly depositing the money, $100/month limit
2) account activity, no limit
She did #2. There was no "gaming" or cheating involved, eyelash-related or otherwise.
]]>@idip: Telling people that the online account is not up to date is no excuse. I'm a programmer and a web designer. I know how databases work and how easy it is to keep one up to date. That might work for someone who has no computer experience but I'm not falling for it. Yes I'm to blame.. they aren't doing it to purposely steal my money, it's for my protection. BS.
Read the other posts about how banks screw poor people with over-draft 'protection'. Also look at how many BILLIONS of dollars banks make each year off those poor people.
]]>@duckfat: What exactly did you expect would happen in the long run?
If there was a limit to the number of online bill payments she was allowed to make, I would have expected the bank to stop transfering money into her Way2Save account at some point during the month, not freezing her checking account. What does one have to do with the other?
]]>@Scoobatz:
But work the problem the other way around. Forget about the Way2Save program-that's not actaully relevant here, except as the OP's motovation for scheduling transactions as she did. What happened was a hold on the account. Well, say you're designing an anti-fraud algorithm. Wouldn't you want such a system to flag, say, 100 one-dollar transactions in a given hour all to the same merchant? Remember, too that $1 is frequently the hold number used in debit transactions. (think gas stations and the like) Frankly, I don't see how an anti-fraud program worthy of the name could *not* flag such a thing.
]]>@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: I JUST got done refinancing my vehicle FROM Wachovia to my local credit union... I hated Wachovia. Went from 10.49% down to 5.89%!
]]>@GitEmSteveDave_Right: 1 Wrong: ∞: Ha, that just happened to me...
]]>@floraposte: What I fail to understand is the relationship between the Way2Save program and freezing the checking account. The account agreement does not indicate any limitation to the number of transactions that can be performed in a month, although it does indicate they have to be "qualified":
Qualified Transactions. A "qualified transaction" is any signature-based or PIN-based Check Card transaction or electronic payment. All other banking transactions not specified above (such as ATM withdrawals, checks, wires, deposits, transfers) are not qualified transactions. Only qualified transactions that post to your linked checking account are eligible for the $1 automatic savings feature. We reserve the right to determine in our sole discretion whether a particular bank transaction is a qualified transaction.
Additionally, the agreement does not restrict minimum payment requirements:
There is no minimum amount required. All Check Card purchases, and online bill payments, including through Online Banking with BillPay or automatic debits from checking regardless of the amount will generate the $1 transfer.
Bottom line -- if the transaction is not qualified, you don't receive the $1 transfer. That should be the end of it. Not sure why the bank additionally would decide to reverse all the online bill payments. Seems like one should have nothing to do with the other.
]]>@K-Bo: That doesn't mean they can't honor the transfers (make the payments), though...it just means they didn't have to apply the $1 payments into the saving account.
They have no excuse for denying payments, and are responsible for the ensueing problems their false hold engendered.
]]>This is why when I worked for a bank, I told people that the online systems are not always up to date if they have made recent purchases and that they should keep a very updated check register so they know exactly how much money they have.
Our bank also closed negative accounts after 120 days of the customer not calling to settle. If the account was closed the amount owed was sent to collections and they account holder could not reopen an account with the bank for 2 years or more.
More if the amount was reported to Chex Systems. And by more I mean, the account holder wouldn't have been able to get any account other then 2nd chance checking in some states.
]]>The issue here is that they reversed the payments, as opposed to preventing them from happening in the first place.
]]>what i don't understand is, if the bank was put on hold, and nothing was ever sent, why did the CCs charge her $39/charge? if there was a hold than this shouldn't count as a bounced check should it? it's simply a non payment. i could maybe see them levying a late charge if she didn't pay in time as a result, but this doesnt seem to make sense.
]]>Court TV "judges" aren't even judges, they're arbitrators.
]]>What are you talking about "getting the $100" limit--they're not giving you money in this program; it simply takes *your* money from your checking and puts it into a savings account with a high interest rate. The $100 limit is how much you can deposit into the high yield savings account, irrespective of transactions--and is not at issue in this post. And yes, she was gaming the system: she said she scheduled the payments, not for the purpose of making the payments, but for the benefit of skirting the limit on deposits.
RTFA.
There's no gaming the system. The banks have rules. You take advantage of them. There's no "fair play". If the banks didn't want people getting the $100 limit, then maybe they should have lowered it. It's still the limit.
If they acted in good faith to prevent fraud, it's still their fault, and they should pay for the reversals.
]]>@idip:
right, but all of that refers to whether they're willing to construe these transactions as contributing to Way2Save--freezing the account is a whole other ballgame; it's exactly like dishonoring a check where the funds are there.
]]>@nakkypoo:
What would be superhuman about scheduling 100 payments in an hour? I could schedule 100 payments on my credit card in less than five minutes--it takes two mouse clicks a piece.
]]>I know various bill pay systems behave differently. Ours takes the money out of your checking account in real time and obtains the money before they turn around and pay the bill. If you don't have the funds they either pay it and overdraft your account or see you don't have the funds and they do not process the transaction.
How this situation was able to pay the bills and THEN realize there was not available money due to the hold and recall the payments from all the places they sent them is a bit odd.
]]>There were two things that I thought were worth mentioning:
1) "3: Qualified Transactions: ....... We reserve the right to determine in our sole discretion whether a particular bank transaction is a qualified transaction."
and most importantly:
2) "8. Changes to this Agreement. We reserve the right to suspend, terminate, or change the Program, or your participation in the Program at any time. We may also close or convert your account to another type of account when we consider it appropriate or necessary to do so. We may terminate the Way2Save Bonus Promotion at any time without notice."
Scheduling hundreds of micro payments to make ONE full payment is not a good idea. I'd like to know if her Credit Card companies are going to charge her fees. I'm sure there are some out there who limit how many 'payments' you can make in one month. Of course... I'm sure that's the credit card companies fault though.
]]>@floraposte: what is the federal limitation on savings account withdrawels? i've never heard of such a thing
]]>@K-Bo:
You wrote,"appear to be an attempt to get past existing rules on the account."
Name the rule, and you've got something. Similarly, show me where it talks about freezing the account.
In fact, the UCC and the relevant fed banking regsworks in quite the opposite way--I am entitled to write $1 checks as long as I like, and the bank simply must honor them.
You can't say it's a fraud alert when nobody gets alerted. If it was, they'd have told her that instead of acting all shady when she calls them about it.
]]>How can companies even get away with that? Someone could write a well crafted contract that gives them full control of someone else's financial affairs & assets, and the ability to do anything anytime they feel like it?
]]>If the bank sent the transaction to the credit card company, and -they- chose to reject or question the payment based on the amount or the number of similar transactions within a certain period, then this has absolutely nothing to do with bank error, and has everything to do with the credit card issuer's own fraudulent activity monitors.
Its impossible for these charges to have triggered charge-backs from the C/C if the bank "froze" the account as the consumer is suggesting. Because a frozen account's pending transactions simply wouldn't be passed on to the credit card company the same way as if you stuff your mailbox with a bunch of trash with insufficient postage, the postal service simply returns it back to you, they don't carry it to the recipient anyhow and demand the recipient reimburse them somehow... the letters simply don't get sent at all.
It appears that the bank did EVERYTHING right in this case, they accepted the payments and sent them to the recipient despite the fact that the consumer was deliberately trying to defraud them {feel free to look up the definition of fraud, its pretty wide}. There was certainly no 'bank error' here, if the bank didn't send the transactions or held the transactions then they couldn't have been returned in the first place (triggering the return fees). This has everything to do with the credit card company, and zero to do with the bank. I'll wager that the consumer didn't tell her credit card company -why- she has so many tiny little payments, for fear that the credit card company would roll their eyes and laugh at her when she demanded they refund the fees, its much more convenient to claim innocence via "bank error".
]]>Part of running such a program would be stopping to look at ways people might game the system and create rules to prevent that. This is such an easy and obvious way to game their savings program they should have seen it as a problem and adjusted the rules to prevent it.
]]>@GMFish:
uggggggh. "Gaming the system" =/= breaking the rules. It means finding a loophole *within* the rules and exploiting it in a way the makers of the rules did not anticipate. In this case, the *only* motivation for making hundreds of $1 transactions was to circumvent the limits on deposits. I'm with the op 100% simply because gaming the system is perfectly okay with me--but that's what the op was doing.
]]>@P41: This may just be an anti-fraud technique. Due to the denomination. $1 is a standard Debit hold amount. Several (150, or more) done by the same company at the same time, the OP's CC, can be viewed as a potential atempt at fraud of the billing party, or even an accounting issue.
Think about it. If a cashier ran your card through 100 times, but never initiated a charge, you'd be on hold for $100. In this case, you can be charged fees by the bank for "uncollected fees" (Love the name they call it)
In this case, the fees came from her CC company, because the bank probably questioned the holds, and waited to see if it was redundant.
]]>@mm16424: My point, it's better to save on your terms than the bank's, who will always stack the game in their favor, so your attempts to game it will usually end in failure.
]]>I never said it did--I was pointing out what the phrase "gamiong the system" means--by definition, it *means* you haven't broken the rules. I happen to be with the OP on this one;
]]>Sounds to me like the banks's accounting or bill pay software detected what it considered fraud and/or a technical glitch. It would be ironic to be so thoroughly screwed by a system designed, ultimately, to protect you.
Also, while I comend your desire to save, this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for $60 (1200 at 5%). No doubt the interest would drop to .25% after the first year. Why not just drop $110 into an online, high yield account with an interest rate that would stay consistently high?
]]>Her reward for scheduling each bill pay (regardless of the amount) is 5 cents. Is her time not worth more than a nickel?
Even if she had the super-human ability to schedule 100 payments per hour, she still wouldn't even be earning minimum wage.
Banks and credit cards need money... and they have the ability to screw with your short term and long term financial status. This is a deadly combination, and one I wouldn't be playing around with in the hopes of earning enough to buy a pack of gum.
]]>If a company refused to accept a payment from me, I'd demand it in writing, then show it to the credit bureaus whilst disputing the debt.
If someone doesn't want money from me, I have NO PROBLEM not giving it to them.
]]>(That, my friends, is a run-on sentence.)
Since it resulted in the closing of some of her accounts and the accumulation of thousands in fees from others, I'd say do not pass EECB, do not collect email addresses, and advance directly to lawsuit. This is not only a large sum of money, but also an adverse effect on her other accounts and her credit rating. Simply crediting her the ~$5,000 in fees wouldn't cover the damage to her credit report from some of her cards being canceled.
I usually don't say this, but sue the pants off these bastards.
]]>@bearymore: Exactly. The Way2Save program relies on data from the bil-pay system which relies on data from their account management system. If the W2S system kicks out a transaction, it is the final user of the data and thus should have no effect on the bill pay or accounts.
]]>Except this was the special stealth fraud prevention that they have not and refuse to tell her anything about?
]]>@GMFish: I'd love to see the fine print in the contract.
]]>Wachovia did not need to put a hold on the account to prevent the transactions from qualifying for the transfer to high-interest savings, so the only reason to hold would be that they suspected fraud.
]]>At the same time, there's probably a better response from Wachovia than essentially sticking their fingers in their ears and ignoring her. Restricting her from using this kind of account would be appropriate, especially since she's shown she doesn't plan on using it as it was intended to be used, but leaving her with over $5,000 in fees and no help in waiving them is going overboard.
]]>@FatLynn: The $1 charges are not forbidden by the program, and their is a cap of $300 interest that can be earned in the first year. To earn that amount you would need to deposit around $6000 into the account. Assuming the OP wouls always deposit $100/ month transfer, she would need to make nearly 400 transactions every month to get to earn her max $300 in interest.
As some have noted in another thread, her mistake was probably making multiple $1 payments to the same bill in the same day. The automated systems likely flagged the transfers as fraud or a duplicate transfer (billing error) so they rejected the payments.
]]>actually, about that "free" part? it turns out there's actually a fee for that...
]]>Basic fact is that op requested a series of bank payments (think of them as a bunch of $1 checks, if you want) and the bank refused to pay them and now can't seem to come up with a legal pretext for not having made the payments.
]]>I wouldn't blame the OP exactly, but I'm not sure I would call them entirely blameless, either. Setting up 150 $1 bill payments sounds excessive to me, and is not something I would do, for fear of triggering trouble. But absolutely I think Wachovia at least owes an explanation of what happened here, what the cause of the hold was, etc, instead of ducking the question. I'm not sure to attribute that to malice or just not knowing the answer. Sticky situation, and best of luck getting it resolved.
]]>Also, I am surprised the OP's credit cards allowed so many payments in a single billing cycle. Mine don't.
]]>Was it gaming the system? Sure, but the proper response by Wachovia should not have been freezing her funds without permission first. The proper response would have been to contact her first, discover the truth, and then plug the loophole within their own policy in such a way that does not harm their customer like this.
It is not the job of the consumer to adhere to rules and policies which the company never made in the first place. Wachovia dropped the ball and so they should be the ones to pick it up.
]]>This says only that Wachovia doesn't have to deposit $1 from the checking account into the high interest savings account for transactions it finds ineligible. It says nothing about putting a hold on the checking account.
]]>When the banks come out with programs that are designed to help consumers save money I knew that it would end in disaster. BoA's "Keep the Change" program that rounds any purchases you make to the next nearest dollar and transfers the "change" to your savings account while it sounds good may very well cause overdraft fees if the customer is not careful with the net result being you saved $5.43, but you were hit with a $30 overdraft fee.
While there is nothing that I saw in the agreement that would prevent a customer from making $1 online bill pay transactions, or anything that would cap the number of transactions you can make, it seems like a lot of work to get at most $300 in interest (the amount that Wachovia caps the program).
To earn the max $300 in interest, one would need to transfer at least $6000 into the account. Assuming you did the once per month $100 transfer, you would need to make nearly 400 purchases or online bill pays per month.
I am one of those people that pay for almost EVERYTHING with my credit card (and pay the bill in full at the end of the month), but I think that I would be hard pressed to acquire 400 transactions per month, even if I were to set up an auto pay amount on a daily basis for all of my bills.
Wachovia probably closed the account due to suspicious activity (how many people pay their bills $1/day every day). In this case, her trying to maximize profiths in the account created a suspicious pattern and the bank took what it thought was an appropriate action.
]]>OP might have some luck getting wachovia's fraud department to admit to the flag & get a little leeway from chase regarding the fees, but that's unlikely.
a little advice for those that care to heed it: don't try to game banks. they own the game. perfect example is chase charging $39/returned payment. do you know how much that payment actually costs chase? certainly less than a soda pop. quite possibly less than a piece of bazooka joe. & for that hassle, they're levying a punitive charge more than 40x greater than their cost. who's gaming who?
]]>Here's my take on Wachovia. I had an account with them. I lost my job and was jobless for what seemed like forever. I had $25 in my account. I checked my account to see if I could afford McDonald's. It said I had $25 in the account so I thought "Great! I can afford to eat today!". So I proceed to go to McDonalds for some yucky fast-food (really I like Micky D's). I get back home and check the account again and they say I owe them now because of an overdraft. Same deal as everyone else who gets into this trap. Anyways the overdraft bill lasted a while because #1. I was broke now and #2. I was unemployed. So they charged me interest. Eventually I found a job and wanted to pay what I owed and start a new account as Wachovia cancelled my account after some time. I finally got some money, a check, and wanted to pay back Wachovia and start a new account. They said they would use the money from my check to start the new account. They lied. They took all my money and denied me from getting a new account. After it was over I was broke again. They took my money and paid themselves back and wouldn't give me a new account.
They are A Holes. All banks are.
]]>Sounds like an illusory contract to me.
]]>Since when does the 'spirit' of the rules matter when it comes to banks? They make a sizable portion of their money by 'gaming the system' under your definition.
]]>So since there were no limits on bill pays, she was just taking advantage of Wachovia's own rules. I think it is funny that you claim if someone finds a good way to work within the rules they are somehow gaming or cheating the system.
Honestly the only issue is what the recipient thinks of getting a bunch of tiny transfers to fund the account. If the recipient is fine, then there are no issues.
Wachovia is also going to get destroyed in court if all they had to do was write a letter to fix the credit card fees but chose not to.
]]>Oh, and haha. I like it when I see people fail miserably at gaming the system.
]]>Wachovia placed a freeze on her account, resulting in the billpay service not being able to send any payments. This in turn triggered return payment fees from her credit cards.
Wachovia can't tell her why the account was frozen.
Susan knew the terms of the offer and took specific actions within those terms. Wachovia is in the wrong here. They don't want to fess up to the fact that there was in oversight in their offer.
Banks suck.
]]>So the terms don't matter. By their own admission this was a glitch that they have no knowledge of ever existing.
So for 5k and most likely more fees to come, it's time to lawyer up and collect damages.
]]>@K-Bo: And? The problem isn't that they told her "You can't do that anymore," or that they discontinued the program. The problem is that they jammed up her account even though she did nothing inappropriate with her account.
]]>I understand that the only way to move money into this special savings account is tied to bill payments, however, if the OP was looking to save money, why not seek out a different bank or savings instrument that has a decent interest rate? It seems like it would be far safer and much less hassle to simply deposit money into such an account rather than mucking about with repeated small payments that generate a $1 deposit.
Just my $.02 worth (or -$.02 worth, if you're Wachovia).
]]>"gaming the system" doesn't mean breaking the rules--it means breaking the spirit of the rules but staying within the,. That's exactly what the OP was trying to do here--for this high rate interest savings account they set a $100 limit, plus transactions. The sole purpose of cutting those payment transactions into the minimum $1 was to cicumvent any limit--that's called gaming the system.
]]>Now she's batting her eyelashes and playing all innocent... "Well, how was I supposed to know that Wachovia didn't want to pay 5% interest on an essentially unlimited amount of money? How was I supposed to know they'd consider it suspicious if I made hundreds of $1 bill payments to the same payee on the same day? I wasn't trying to game the system, honest! I *always* pay my credit-card account off one dollar at a time!" Please, spare me.
When you try to game the system, and you get caught, you deserve whatever you get.
]]>@floraposte: Sorry about my laggy comment, I didn't refresh the page before I hit submit.
]]>@K-Bo: I would love to be on the opposite side of a Wachovia official explaining under oath what criteria they use to determine whether something is "qualified", and why they don't notify their customers if a transaction is not qualified.
]]>@seth_lerman: So taking advantage, within the rules, of a savings program is bad, but putting a phantom hold on your customer's account without telling them and having zero explanation after the fact is meh?
]]>@floraposte: If I'm reading it right, she was making the payments from her checking.. That's how that "Way2Save" works.. You pay a bill or something from checking and it automatically transfers $1 from your checking to your savings.
]]>@K-Bo:
But that's just it-construing the transactions as "not qualified" for the automatic savings feature is not the same as putting a hold on the account.
]]>@bohemian:
Wachovia is NOT giving you any "free" money here. All they are doing is taking $1 of your own money out of your checking account and putting it into your savings account. Yes, they pay a nice interest rate on the savings account, but it is certainly not worth the hassle that OP is dealing with...
]]>I'm not blaming the OP here, but people have to realize that these "schemes" companies come out with are ultimately meant to benefit them in the long run.
They do not just give free money to their customers, somehow, someway you will be paying for it.
If you try to tell me it wasn't my fault, they screwed up, let me reiterate: somehow, someway you will be paying for it.
]]>The new "savings plans" like these have made me nervous, and this would be a reason why. I haven't signed up for any of them, and I think they're mostly a way to trap people into paying more fees.
Why would I want each debit purchase rounded up to the nearest dollar, and then transfered to savings at the whim of the bank, whenever they decide it's "the right time"? That's just asking for trouble. (I know this is not the way Way2Save works, but it's another one that is similar.)
Sounds like a bad idea to me.. Good luck to the OP getting out of this mess. Shady banks need to quit it..
]]>It does appear, though, that tons of $1 bill-pay transactions looks fishy. Did the OP talk to the CC's fraud departments?
]]>"How is that my fault and not the bank's???"
I think that is answered here:
"So I scheduled a lot of $1 bill payments to my credit cards every day to try to get as much money in the savings account as possible."
Might have kicked off a fraud alert system or something.
]]>Reading fail. The program transfers $1 of YOUR money from checking into savings, not their money.
Also, if what she's doing is within the rules of the program, how is that a scam or gaming the system?
Way to blame the victim.
]]>@bohemian: +1 for "Watchovia"
Face facts, they messed up and by law have to provide a rationale for the hold. It seems like it would be in Wachovia's interest to either amend the terms of the Way2Save promotion and assist the OP in zeroing out the fee portion.
]]>@duckfat: At worst, that the bank would contact her and tell her they would no longer allow her to participate in the program. Your point is what?
]]>S abv cmmnt!
]]>Either the CSRs at Watchovia are in the dark, sometimes CSR systems are really limited. Or they are lying to cover Watchovia's butt. Either are a possibility. It is not unusual to catch a CSR blatantly lying as you discover later when more facts are available or someone finally admits what happened.
I would go to the branch and insist on talking to a manager or VP, the tellers can't really do anything. Refuse to leave until this is resolved.
]]>@duckfat:
Yr dng t wrng!
]]>@twophrasebark: I believe the CC's "returned" the payments, ie rejected them.
]]>I'm thinking its like what used to happen when I worked at the supermarket. If you tried to ring up two+ orders of the exact same amount within a short period of time, the CC company would kick it back and decline, as it was a possible duplicate. You then needed to do a manual override to let it through, but it was a pain in the butt, and you had to do it EACH time.
]]>So sad for the OP, it seems like a fairly simple error to correct on the part of Wachovia and her CC's, but neither will do it because it shuts them out of some dough.
I had a similar problem with T. Rowe Price's auto-max feature on my Roth IRA. Long story short, the "cancel" button doesn't work. I had waffled back and forth over the course of a week when deciding if I should max out in the calendar year or take advantage of the window that extends through to April 15, 2010. TRP drew the sum of three(!) auto-max payments (around $275 a pop), throwing my checking account into overdraft.
My CU dropped the charge for me, but TRP refunded the money as a "draw" from the account, meaning it has tax liabilities/penalties, etc. because it wasn't an error on part. Not happy, was I.
]]>Either the funds were available - or they weren't. And if they weren't then why not?
]]>Lets encourage people to save by charging them egregious fees! Yaay!
]]>