var json_comments = new Array("
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Oranges w/ Cheese hates what Christmas has become
October 27, 2009 6:08 PM
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Oh my word. That is extremely unfortunate. Stupid that Wachovia doesn't let you put more money into the account (though I can see why, considering you get a considerably larger interest rate).

Lets encourage people to save by charging them egregious fees! Yaay!

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2 replies
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osprey
July 24, 2010 1:24 PM
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It is not unfortunate. She was over working the system and no institution should have to deal with person making so many separate payments. That just hikes up banking fees that we all pay. She was close to stealing. Not feeling any sentiment at all for girl who gets what she deserves by forgetting ethics and logic!

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Verucalise (Est.February2008)
October 27, 2009 7:53 PM
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@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%!

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twophrasebark
October 27, 2009 6:12 PM
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How does Wachovia explain that the bill payments were reversed?

Either the funds were available - or they weren't. And if they weren't then why not?

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3 replies
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GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns
October 27, 2009 6:20 PM
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@twophrasebark: I'm guessing the system didn't \"decline\" them, but \"questioned\" them. Since there isn't a real person on the other end to receive the notice from Wachovia's system asking if this is a possible duplicate charge(OP says they scheduled more than one a day, and they batch process, so they would be done at one certain time of day. Many systems \"soft\" decline a bunch of exact same withdrawals at one time from one merchant, as the system may be experiencing an error or a clerk is double charging for some reason, etc... and ask that the merchant verify that this isn't a double charge), so one system records it as waiting for acknowledgment, then failing to get it, while the other system records it as a failed transaction.

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DollaValueLIFO
October 27, 2009 6:14 PM
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@twophrasebark: I believe the CC's \"returned\" the payments, ie rejected them.

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DollaValueLIFO
October 27, 2009 6:12 PM
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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.

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duckfat
October 27, 2009 6:12 PM
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You tried to game the system and got caught. What exactly did you expect would happen in the long run?

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20 replies
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FrugalFreak
October 28, 2009 9:44 AM
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@duckfat:

She just tried following the banks as role models. \"Good for the Goose is fit for the Gander\".

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H3ion
October 28, 2009 1:49 AM
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@duckfat: Is it gaming the system to accumulate coupons so that your grocery shopping is essentially free? Nothing wrong with it as far as I can see. While the OP was (sad to say, \"silly\" is the only word that comes to mind), that doesn't excuse Wachovia from providing notice before putting a hold on her account. I think she ought to read the bank terms and conditions and see if there's anything in there about holds. I would guess that they would at least have to make some effort.

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Scoobatz
October 27, 2009 7:57 PM
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@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?

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GMFish
October 27, 2009 6:49 PM
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@duckfat: How in the frick did she \"game the system\"? She used the system to fully maximize the offer given by Wachovia. But I see no evidence of any \"gaming.\" And until someone points out a rule that OP violated, there was no gaming.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:13 PM
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@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.

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chaoss13
October 27, 2009 7:01 PM
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@GMFish: I'd love to see the fine print in the contract.

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Naame
October 27, 2009 6:47 PM
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@duckfat: Unless it was formally stated in Wachovia's policies that one cannot do what she was doing then it is not a scam and she did nothing wrong.

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.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 6:19 PM
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@duckfat: @Bunnies_Attack!:

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.

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FatLynn
October 27, 2009 6:42 PM
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@uncle_fluffy: I'd be really interested in seeing the \"rules of the program\", to be honest. If they forbid this, we can blame the OP. If this is an unintended consequence that Wachovia didn't foresee, than I am torn. She is still trying to game the system for her benefit.

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Rachacha
October 27, 2009 6:54 PM
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@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.

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FatLynn
October 27, 2009 7:28 PM
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@Rachacha: Yes, the more info that comes to light about the program, the more I think Wachovia acted in good faith to prevent fraud, not to pinch their pennies.

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LadySiren is murdering her kids with HFCS and processed cheese
October 27, 2009 6:33 PM
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@uncle_fluffy: I hate comments that blame the OP/victim, so I'm rather distressed to find myself agreeing somewhat with this was a preventable disaster.

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).

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italianscallion33
October 28, 2009 11:48 AM
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@LadySiren: Better yet, if she is trying to save money, why doesn't she pay off her flipping credit card bills which probably have much higher than 5% interest rates? Stop effing around with the bank and pay your debt.

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bohemian
October 27, 2009 7:15 PM
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@LadySiren: I would not have done it. My concern would have been some disaster just like this woman ended up with. That doesn't mean what Watchovia did was ok.

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Oranges w/ Cheese hates what Christmas has become
October 27, 2009 6:39 PM
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@LadySiren: Yeah, I understand that what she did was questionable too, but it doesn't excuse Wachovia from at least saying \"hey is this legit?\" before pwning her in the face.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 6:33 PM
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@uncle_fluffy:


\"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.

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cowboyesfan
October 28, 2009 5:46 PM
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@treimel:

This reminds me of the guy that bought all of those pudding packs to get airline miles.

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bbb111
October 28, 2009 7:42 AM
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@treimel:

This is gaming the system in the same spirit as the banks reordering the debits largest to smallest to maximize overdraft fees.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 6:41 PM
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@treimel:

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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:09 PM
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@uncle_fluffy:


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;

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jik
October 27, 2009 6:33 PM
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@uncle_fluffy: The point of only allowing $100 to be deposited directly into the account per month is to limit the amount of money upon which Wachovia will have to pay 5% interest. The idea of the $1 transfer per online bill payment is to encourage people to use online bill payment, not to allow them to game 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.

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Moosenogger
October 27, 2009 9:54 PM
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@jik: This isn't \"gaming the system,\" this is working within the limits of Wachovia's shitty savings program. They allowed the OP to set up $1 bill payments to her CC companies, so they can't suddenly freeze the account for no reason and take zero responsibility when the OP starts wracking up fees from her CC companies.

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).

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bohemian
October 27, 2009 7:14 PM
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@jik: Watchovia shouldn't have allowed such a loophole to exist in the first place. If they don't want people doing this then they should put a limit on how many bill payments would go toward the savings account in a month and then lock out that option.

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.

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idip
October 27, 2009 7:24 PM
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@bohemian: Since no one has added here is a link to the program account agreement.

[www.wachovia.com]

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.

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italianscallion33
October 28, 2009 11:53 AM
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@idip: Her CC companies DID charge her returned payment fees. My CC company (Chase) doesn't let me make more than one electronic payment every 3 days, but it doesn't charge me fees if I try, it just doesn't let me make the payment and tells me to wait.

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nucwin83
October 27, 2009 7:37 PM
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@jik: Precisely. As much as I hate Wachovia and have had my own issues with them, this was totally preventable. She tried to do something that she couldn't do through normal means, so she did something that was highly unusual, and the system flagged it. Sucks for her, but that's about the extent of my empathy in this situation.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:30 PM
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@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.

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Orv
October 27, 2009 6:40 PM
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@jik: If Wachovia didn't want her to do this, they should have forbid it in the rules. The way they handled it is tantamount to changing the rules in the middle of the game.

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italianscallion33
October 28, 2009 11:50 AM
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@Orv: @Orv: According to the OP, though, she was making $1 payments daily on several different credit cards. That could end up being over $100 every month into that savings account, which is outside the limit Wachovia stated in the contract. I wonder if the contract says that once you surpass that $100 (and it would ONLY have to be on purpose, because who pays 100 bills a month??), that your account is frozen. It makes sense to me.

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.

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Bunnies_Attack!
October 27, 2009 6:30 PM
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@uncle_fluffy: Dammit, you're right. Whoops. Back to remedial reading for me...

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seth_lerman
October 27, 2009 6:18 PM
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@duckfat: Those were my thoughts too. The hold was probably \"we see a ton of $1 transactions so something must be wrong\". Why they didn't call to say there's a problem and why they can't explain it after the fact I don't know.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 6:30 PM
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@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?

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mythago
October 27, 2009 6:16 PM
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@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?

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Bunnies_Attack!
October 27, 2009 6:15 PM
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@duckfat: Yea, I don't get it. This person obviously tried to scam more money from Wachovia by doing hundreds of $1 bill payments to get the free $1 from Wachovia and was caught. How is this the bank's fault? I'm having a hard time feeling bad for the OP...

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fitzhume
October 28, 2009 3:49 PM
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@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.

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GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns
October 27, 2009 6:13 PM
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IIRC, many companies have rules against doing so many transfers in a one month period before you start accruing fees.

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.

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Xerloq
October 27, 2009 6:21 PM
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@GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns: The only rules I'm familiar with are for making withdrawals from savings.

It does appear, though, that tons of $1 bill-pay transactions looks fishy. Did the OP talk to the CC's fraud departments?

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GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns
October 27, 2009 6:31 PM
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@Xerloq says Can I has Friday?: This usually doesn't fall under \"fraud\". Sometimes when a system gets a hiccup from perhaps a power failure, or a failure of a register on the customers side, they attempt to re-process the sale. The bank then requires a confirmation from the customer side that this is NOT a duplicate transaction. It's a way to avoid a double charge on your account(I mean, when is the last time you had a double charge on your CC recently?). Since it's a computer on the customer side, it CAN'T confirm that it isn't, because it isn't human, and since AI isn't around, if you told the computer to confirm that each possible duplicate isn't, you would get a loop of double/triple/quadruple/etc... charges.

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duffman13
October 28, 2009 12:49 PM
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@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.

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duffman13
October 28, 2009 12:49 PM
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@duffman13: Didn't work i mean, not didn't charge me.

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floraposte
October 27, 2009 6:14 PM
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I'm wondering if the OP fell afoul of the federal limitation on the number of withdrawals you can make from savings in a cycle.

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9 replies
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Scoobatz
October 27, 2009 7:47 PM
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@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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:56 PM
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@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.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 8:03 PM
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@treimel:

Again, a fraud alert that alerts no one is not a fraud alert. They screwed up.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 8:11 PM
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@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.

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Difdi
October 27, 2009 10:26 PM
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@treimel: I agree, a fraud detection algorithm that can't trigger a freeze is useless. But the thing is, they didn't notify the OP of the freeze, and in fact, claim that no freeze, hold or other action was taken on the account.

From what facts are available, it's looking to me like the bank dropped the ball, and NO ONE there anticipated that their rules made what the OP did possible, so they had no way of dealing with it when it happened. But instead of doing the responsible thing, they decided to punish the OP for what she did.

Since retributive action of that nature generally falls under a heading of bank fraud, they can't exactly admit that they did it, now can they?

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idip
October 28, 2009 1:31 PM
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@Difdi: I don't think it was mentioned, but I have worked for a bank before.

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.

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craptastico
October 27, 2009 7:23 PM
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@floraposte: what is the federal limitation on savings account withdrawels? i've never heard of such a thing

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nybiker
October 28, 2009 12:15 AM
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@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.

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floraposte
October 27, 2009 10:51 PM
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@craptastico: Here's a bit of an overview on the 6-withdrawals thing--as mentioned, it's a limit on ACH (electronic/distance withdrawals), and it applies only to savings and money market accounts: [www.moneybluebook.com]

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Alexander
October 27, 2009 10:00 PM
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@craptastico: RE: what is the federal limitation on savings account withdrawels? i've never heard of such a thing

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.

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Kimaroo - 100% Pure Natural Kitteh
October 27, 2009 6:30 PM
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@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.

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Esquire99
October 27, 2009 6:19 PM
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@floraposte:
I thought the same, but it looks like the payments (i.e. the withdrawals), were coming from her checking account.

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floraposte
October 27, 2009 6:25 PM
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@Esquire99: Then I'm out of ideas, save \"crap, it never occurred to us somebody would do this.\"

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Kimaroo - 100% Pure Natural Kitteh
October 27, 2009 6:32 PM
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@floraposte: Sorry about my laggy comment, I didn't refresh the page before I hit submit.

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bohemian
October 27, 2009 6:15 PM
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It seems pretty clean what happened. This was a loophole in Watchovia's savings incentive program and she discovered it. It doesn't sound like there were any limits on bill pays and this $1 reward so the OP technically didn't do anything wrong. I would guess is that someone at Watchovia saw this and put the hold there. Then upon talking to someone higher up realized that Watchovia was SOL and removed the hold. In the mean time all the damage was done and outside fees racked up.

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.

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14 replies
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lehrdude
October 27, 2009 6:28 PM
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@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...

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GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns
October 27, 2009 6:27 PM
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@bohemian: Usually if there is such a \"loophole\", they let the first person get away with it, then change the terms on the accounts. As I have said above, when I worked at a supermarket, if you tried to buy three sale items, and you were limited to one item per order, what people would do is have me ring up three orders with just the sale item on them. If they paid by cash, no problem. But if they paid by card, they would 9 times out of ten get a \"Duplicate\" decline(code 200, IIRC). It wasn't a \"real\" decline, as if a manager swiped their card and approved the transaction, the bank would then process it, as it had received confirmation from the store that \"we have looked at the transaction, realized it is the same as one made right before this one, but it is NOT a duplicate\". Since it's computers on each end, there is no way for Chase's computer to tell Wachovia's computer that the 10 $1 charges it is trying to process within one minute of each other are not a system error, so it stops them to prevent a problem if it IS a duplicating error.

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K-Bo
October 27, 2009 6:22 PM
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@bohemian: Did a little research, and as I expected, Wachovia was never sol, due to this language in the way to save agreement: \"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.\"

[www.wachovia.com]

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athensguy
November 28, 2009 10:17 AM
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Because \"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.\" means exactly the same as \"We reserve the right to refuse to pay a billpay transaction that was duly scheduled using our billpay service, even if funds are available to make the payment\", right? Or no, the transfer from checking to Way2Save actually has nothing to do with whether the Checkfree payment should clear, so what you've stated here is irrelevant and somewhat trollish.

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RStui
October 27, 2009 7:43 PM
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@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.

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bohemian
October 27, 2009 7:20 PM
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@K-Bo: LOL! Way to make up the rules as you go. I don't think I have seen anything where what qualifies under a program isn't defined in some way.

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?

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P41
October 27, 2009 6:52 PM
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@K-Bo: Sorry, I don't see anywhere in what you've quoted where they can freeze the account. I only see that they're not obligated to give the bonus if they don't want to.

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.

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bohemian
October 27, 2009 7:27 PM
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@P41: I didn't see where she was trying to say it did that. But the fast moving goal post is quite disturbing. There has still been no viable reason given for the hold on this account by her bank and nobody has found language in Watchovia's terms that would allow it.

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bearymore
October 27, 2009 6:45 PM
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@K-Bo:

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.

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nbs2
October 27, 2009 7:02 PM
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@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.

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FatLynn
October 27, 2009 6:55 PM
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@bearymore: The more I think about it, then, the more I think that Wachovia acted in good faith (trying to prevent fraud) and the OP did not.

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.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 7:02 PM
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@FatLynn:

Except this was the special stealth fraud prevention that they have not and refuse to tell her anything about?

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FatLynn
October 27, 2009 6:44 PM
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@K-Bo: Thanks for the research. That said, I am not sure that it exonerates Wachovia. Saying they won't do the $1 transfer for every transaction is different from saying they won't let the transaction go through.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 6:42 PM
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@K-Bo:

Sounds like an illusory contract to me.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 6:32 PM
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@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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 6:28 PM
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@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.

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K-Bo
October 27, 2009 6:33 PM
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@treimel: but if there is a repeated attempt at non-qualified transactions, that would be a reason to freeze it, especially when the non-qualified transactions appear to be an attempt to get past existing rules on the account. I wouldn't be surprised if such weird behavior as paying bills $1 at a time would cause a hold on any account, even when it didn't appear to be a way around the banks rules.

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bohemian
October 27, 2009 7:24 PM
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@K-Bo: I am still at a loss regarding the bill pays that were sent out and then recalled.

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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:23 PM
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@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.

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P41
October 27, 2009 6:54 PM
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@K-Bo: Under what legal theory or account clause can a bank refuse to pay a series of $1 checks?

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K-Bo
October 27, 2009 7:15 PM
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@P41: Not refuse to pay, put a hold on the account. Same legal theory and account clause that allowed them to freeze my brothers account because he spent $20 in Canada, but then allowed them to ignore the $100s he spent in the UK the same year. There is all kind of CYA clauses in bank account agreements that say \"if we suspect something might be wrong, we can freeze the account\"

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 7:21 PM
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@K-Bo:

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.

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chaoss13
October 27, 2009 7:10 PM
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@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.

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floraposte
October 27, 2009 6:25 PM
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@K-Bo: Wow. Those are some seriously fast-moving goalposts. Good find.

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DollaValueLIFO
October 27, 2009 6:18 PM
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@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.

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ctaylor
October 27, 2009 6:20 PM
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Sounds like there is more to this story than we're getting. Like some fine print that limits the number of withdrawals per period.

\"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.

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3 replies
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mac-phisto
October 27, 2009 6:42 PM
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@ctaylor: that's what i'm thinking. someone saw an assload of $1 transactions & flagged the account.

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?

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Kogenta
October 27, 2009 9:03 PM
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@mac-phisto: Yeah, usually when a bank sees a shitload of little transactions, that's a big red flag for credit card theft. The thief makes a bunch of mini-purchases to ensure the card works before taking the motherload.

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Corporate_guy
October 27, 2009 6:36 PM
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@ctaylor: Not of that speculation is valid because wachovia isn't giving such a reason for the hold. They are denying the existence of the hold.

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.

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NightSteel
October 27, 2009 6:22 PM
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Depending on how far over 5000 your damages are, you might consider taking Wachovia to small claims and asking for the max. Wachovia should back down once they're threatened with court, but even if they don't, it seems likely to me that a judge would see it your way, and if you get awarded the max, that almost pays off the fees.

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GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns
October 27, 2009 6:35 PM
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@NightSteel: I wouldn't agree. Judges see a lot of people trying to \"get past the rules\", and aren't always sympathetic. In fact, it just might backfire. I remember watching Judge Mills Lane(or one of them) catch a person saying they were shuffling money around through deposits and withdrawals to \"kite\" checks, and found against them.

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GitEmSteveDave_Right: 1 Wrong: ∞
October 27, 2009 9:24 PM
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@Chris Walters: IIRC, it wasn't exactly kiting. He was depositing money then taking it out, etc... It was long ago, but I remember the Judge caught him admitting he did something shifty, which shows he wasn't the innocent bystander he made himself out to be.

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mac-phisto
October 27, 2009 7:00 PM
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@GitEmSteveDave_FullOfEvilClowns: court tv? seriously? i mean we're all armchair quarterbacks here, but c'mon. there's gotta be a better example for your argument than the celebrity deathmatch ref.

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wrjohnston91283
October 27, 2009 7:38 PM
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@mac-phisto:


Court TV \"judges\" aren't even judges, they're arbitrators.

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K-Bo
October 27, 2009 6:25 PM
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@uncle_fluffy: Still gaming the system as it is a way to get past the $100 limit they gave the account in order to be able to offer such a high rate.

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CheritaChen
October 27, 2009 8:59 PM
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@K-Bo: Did you read the entire agreement? That $100 limit you seem stuck on is just a limit to separately (customer)-initiated deposits per month. There is no disclosed limitation on the number of $1 transfer transactions, either per month or per anything else. I'm not saying I'd do what the OP did, but she played the game by their stated rules. \"Gaming the system\" or not, Wachovia fucked her over, Wachovia needs to fix it.

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mac-phisto
October 27, 2009 6:49 PM
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@K-Bo: regardless, fluffy has a point. take the savings account out of it. wachovia had a duty to pay the scheduled payments as promised or notify her if the payments couldn't be made. the OP may have recourse under the payment contract made between her & wachovia when she signed up for bill payments to come out of her account. they quite possibly could be in breach of contract for freezing her account & refusing to honor payments that they originally accepted for processing.

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Corporate_guy
October 27, 2009 6:40 PM
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@K-Bo: Not gaming of the system. ETFs cost nothing. The one dollar is her own money, but Wachovia only transfers 1 dollar of your own money into the savings account for each bill pay you make.

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.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 6:34 PM
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@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.

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Kimaroo - 100% Pure Natural Kitteh
October 27, 2009 6:22 PM
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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..

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1 replies
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Cant_stop_the_rock
October 27, 2009 8:24 PM
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@Kimaroo - No Stars Upon Thars:

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.

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Blueskylaw
October 27, 2009 6:24 PM
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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.

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2 replies
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mythago
October 27, 2009 9:44 PM
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@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.

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mac-phisto
October 27, 2009 6:52 PM
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@Blueskylaw: yeah, only banks get to use your money for free, not the other way around!

actually, about that \"free\" part? it turns out there's actually a fee for that...

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Duke_Newcombe sez íViva la Revolucion de Chihuahua!
October 27, 2009 6:25 PM
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Free markets can best regulate themselves, and provide the best protections for the consumer. We must avoid socialism and government takeover of our banks. Nothing to see here. Move along. /sarcasm

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Danj3ris
October 27, 2009 6:36 PM
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The op knew the terms of the offer. Knowing these terms, she attempted to maximize her returns by scheduling a number of bill payments. She has done nothing wrong.

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.

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Schmeeky
October 27, 2009 6:38 PM
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Most credit cards limit how many payments you can make in a bill cycle. Could it be possible that the credit card companies rejected the payments but somehow categorized them as reversed payments? This is such a weird issue that it's very possible neither Wachovia or the credit card issuers are recognizing the exact error.

Oh, and haha. I like it when I see people fail miserably at gaming the system.

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Julia789
October 28, 2009 12:20 AM
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@Schmeeky: My credit card has a limit of two payments per billing cycle. I get paid twice a month, and like to send some of each check to pay off current purchases (so I keep my balance low or paid off entirely, but earn points that I don't earn with a debit card.)

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.

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hi
October 27, 2009 6:42 PM
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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.

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temporaryerror
October 27, 2009 8:12 PM
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@hi:
How did you come to overdraft in the first place? You never really mentioned it.

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idip
October 27, 2009 7:41 PM
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@hi: :-s

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.

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hi
October 27, 2009 7:59 PM
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@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.

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Blufyor
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@hi: Not all transactions come through in a timely manner, so it's a fair statement. I've never worked at a bank, but I have noticed that, to give one example, a debit card payment I did at a Sears during the week (not on a Friday or the weekend) didn't go through until the next Monday (same $$, but that Monday's date on my balance sheet). Plus, if you do something like transferring money directly to/from one bank's checking account to an account at another bank (like an internet bank) it takes several days to go through all of the handshaking.

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cuchanu
October 27, 2009 6:44 PM
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Just fucking sue them. Threaten first with a fancy letter, then take their failing asses straight to court.

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Rachacha
October 27, 2009 6:45 PM
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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.

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PølάrβǽЯ
October 27, 2009 7:07 PM
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@Rachacha: I fail to see how REVERSING all the payments was appropriate. Preventing FURTHER payments, yes. CALLING her to ask WTF is goin on, yes. Reversing hundreds of payments, no, not appropriate.

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FatLynn
October 27, 2009 6:47 PM
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Does anyone know if a bank is legally allowed to put an account on hold if they suspect fraud?

Also, I am surprised the OP's credit cards allowed so many payments in a single billing cycle. Mine don't.

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2 replies
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PølάrβǽЯ
October 27, 2009 7:05 PM
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@FatLynn: I would think that they would have a legal obligation to accept money from you, else they admit the debt is invalid.

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.

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FatLynn
October 27, 2009 7:30 PM
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@Ursus Maritimus: More specifically, they limit the number of EFT payments I can make in one billing cycle. I think it is something like 6, so it has never been an issue, but they can and do have this limitation.

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floraposte
October 27, 2009 10:55 PM
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@FatLynn: That's just from savings and money market accounts; the OP's now-frozen account was, I now grasp, a checking account, which shouldn't be subject to such limits.

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Scuba Steve
October 27, 2009 8:47 PM
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@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.

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Rectilinear Propagation
October 27, 2009 6:51 PM
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I don't get why they'd reverse the bill payments. Seems like what bills she was paying wouldn't have anything to do with Wachovia's problem with what she was doing.

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tamaracks
October 27, 2009 6:51 PM
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It's hard to say exactly what is going on here. It sounds like some kind of fraud detection may have been triggered. Or, perhaps Wachovia did do something to try to get out of all the savings transfers. Although, I would think Wachovia could disqualify the transfers without stopping the bill payment. Stranger things have happened, however.

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.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 8:05 PM
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@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.

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Trick
October 27, 2009 11:00 PM
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@mythago:

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?

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mythago
October 28, 2009 4:23 AM
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@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.

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tamaracks
October 28, 2009 3:02 PM
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@mythago: I don't think anyone trying to game the system is entirely innocent. As I said, Wachovia definitely owes an explanation for what caused those payments to bounce. I just think that what the OP did is risky behavior, whether it was against the rules or not.

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Schildkrote
October 27, 2009 6:55 PM
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It's obvious that Susan wasn't using the account as intended and that she was aware this was the case, so I'm not sure how sympathetic I can feel in this situation. If I'm going to try to game a system, I'd probably try it with a system a bit less dangerous than a bank.

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.

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That's Consumer007 to you
October 28, 2009 2:33 PM
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@Schildkrote: Where does it say she can't use the account as she did?

At least we agree on your second paragraph.

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Schildkrote
October 28, 2009 3:05 PM
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@Areyouagoodlittleconsumer:

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.

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PølάrβǽЯ
October 27, 2009 7:02 PM
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Usually I'd say \"That's why you don't trust banks, and always read the fine print, and you should have known they'd do this,\" but in this case, it seems like she was using her account exactly as designed, they didn't like it, and they not only cut her off, but screwed her over in several different ways.

(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.

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Gracegottcha
October 27, 2009 7:04 PM
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Sounds to me like the OP was trying to scam the system, but the system punked her!

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nakkypoo
October 27, 2009 7:06 PM
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This is ridiculous. Wachovia could have handled this better, but so could have the OP.

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.

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coren
October 27, 2009 8:49 PM
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@nakkypoo: Ok, say I could schedule 20 payments a minute. That's a dollar a minute, or 60 dollars an hour. 60 dollars an hour, by 40 hours a week, by 50 weeks a year, that's 120 grand a year. Granted, no one's gonna do it that much and they do cap it, but sure, my time's worth 60 bucks an hour

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:28 PM
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@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.

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jwalker095
October 27, 2009 7:06 PM
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I wouldn't let Wachovia watch-ova-ya money.. (Sorry I had to..)

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mm16424
October 27, 2009 7:08 PM
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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?

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That's Consumer007 to you
October 28, 2009 2:37 PM
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@mm16424: Okay there HAS to be some point at which we stop banks from jacking up your account or doing whatever they want, WITHOUT communicating, and making your life hell just because you MIGHT be fraudulent. Every customer in the world MIGHT be fraudulent.

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.

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mm16424
October 27, 2009 7:10 PM
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@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.

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Ohpine
October 27, 2009 7:19 PM
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This may not even be the bank's fault.

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\".

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Scuba Steve
October 27, 2009 7:30 PM
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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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 7:38 PM
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@Scuba Steve:


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.

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italianscallion33
October 28, 2009 11:55 AM
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@treimel: She made several tiny CC payments to maximize her advantage in the program, not to skirt the limit. I am guessing she went over the limit in doing this, by making tiny payments to several different CC companies over a month.

Stupid idea.

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uncle_fluffy
October 28, 2009 12:23 PM
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@italianscallion33:

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.

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craptastico
October 27, 2009 7:39 PM
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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.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 7:41 PM
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@craptastico:

The issue here is that they reversed the payments, as opposed to preventing them from happening in the first place.

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craptastico
October 27, 2009 9:00 PM
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@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

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floraposte
October 27, 2009 10:57 PM
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@craptastico: My understanding is that even with checks, they can come back to you for the money later.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 9:02 PM
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@craptastico:

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.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 8:02 PM
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@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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 8:08 PM
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@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.

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Difdi
October 27, 2009 10:19 PM
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@treimel: It didn't work because Wachovia essentially committed bank fraud in their favor. The rules of the deal allow Wachovia to take certain actions against people gaming the system, but they didn't do any of those things. They froze the OP's account instead.

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dragonfire81
October 27, 2009 10:58 PM
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It is my experience that banks don't always contact the customer first with regards to a fraud issue. The other progression is:

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.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 8:27 PM
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@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?

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treimel
October 27, 2009 8:33 PM
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@mythago:
Oh, also--you might want to check the scoreboard on your predictions: 5,000 dollars is what happens on planet earth.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 8:32 PM
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@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?

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mythago
October 27, 2009 9:42 PM
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@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?

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treimel
October 27, 2009 11:19 PM
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@mythago:

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.

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treimel
October 27, 2009 11:37 PM
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@treimel:

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.

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Easton21
October 27, 2009 9:09 PM
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@treimel: You seem pretty sure. Please, enlighten us all as to how you know that.
Otherwise, stop assuming like everyone else and settle the f' down.

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uncle_fluffy
October 27, 2009 8:38 PM
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@treimel:

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?

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treimel
October 27, 2009 11:17 PM
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@uncle_fluffy:

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.

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uncle_fluffy
October 28, 2009 1:22 AM
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@treimel:

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.

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vastrightwing
October 27, 2009 8:37 PM
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Wachovia is trying to beat BoA for worst company of the year. But even they won't be able to beat Bank Of America. The decision as to qualifying transactions are easy: does Wachovia make money? if yes, then the transaction qualifies, if no, then it doesn't.

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madog
October 27, 2009 8:54 PM
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This is turning into an episode of The Daily Show. They show a clip of one news network using some buzzword or phrase and then 15 other shows using the exact one. Stop saying \"game the system\". You ain't got game.

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StanTheManDean
October 27, 2009 9:32 PM
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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?

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treimel
October 28, 2009 1:02 PM
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@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.

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roanoke
October 27, 2009 9:59 PM
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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.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 10:02 PM
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@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?

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Trick
October 27, 2009 10:58 PM
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I'm not going to blame the OP... in the end the OP didn't do anything wrong from what I can tell. Sucks to be the OP...

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.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 11:05 PM
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@dragonfire81: This makes sense. Incompetence in contacting the customer + incompetence in dealing with the mistake afterward.

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calderon0311
October 27, 2009 11:22 PM
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I use Wachovia, and their W2S program as well. The $100 limit is on monthly deposits/transfers as this account. From my experience, each transaction will still trigger the 1$ transfer, after I made the $100 limit.

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)

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partofme
October 27, 2009 11:37 PM
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What about Wachovia's high frequency trading? Should those trades be randomly put on hold because the frequency could imply fraud?

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GadgetsAlwaysFit
October 27, 2009 11:48 PM
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Why not just transfer in $100 to the Way2Save account? Wachovia's website reads that they will allow that to build up your balance even faster. Sounds a lot easier than setting up 100 - $1 transactions. Maybe I just didn't understand the OPs explanation of what they were doing....

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demitasse
October 27, 2009 11:50 PM
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Wachovia hit me with overdraft fees for the Way2Save program (much like the earlier BofA user got smacked by overdraft fees thanks to Keep the Change) to the tune of nearly $60. For the third time. There's only one problem: I never enrolled in Way2Save. Fortunately, the people running my branch were able to reverse the fees every time (increasingly embarrassed each time it happened), but it was time they and I shouldn't have had to spend on fixing the problem in the first place.

Yeah, I've left Wachovia, as you might expect.

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mythago
October 27, 2009 11:59 PM
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@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.

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treimel
October 28, 2009 12:43 PM
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@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.

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uncle_fluffy
October 28, 2009 3:22 PM
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@treimel:

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.

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Michael Belisle
October 28, 2009 3:20 AM
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@mythago: Nowhere does it say she scheduled \"a couple hundred one-dollar bill pays in a two day period\"

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.

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mythago
October 28, 2009 4:13 AM
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@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\".

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brettmeadors
October 28, 2009 12:16 AM
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The Wachovia Twitter Account is quite useful. They helped me out quite a bit :)

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Ronin-Democrat
October 28, 2009 12:23 AM
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The OP took advantage of the offer in an out of the box way and I applaud her for beating them at their own game.

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.

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smiling1809
October 28, 2009 2:32 AM
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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.\"

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uncle_fluffy
October 28, 2009 2:56 AM
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@smiling1809:

Truly, wanting to get the maximum $600/yr from that 5% savings account is the height of avarice.

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NYGuy1976
October 28, 2009 2:48 AM
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The OP could try to sue but I would think any judge would see that this person was trying to do something that no reasonable person would think is OK.

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.

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trojanjustin
October 28, 2009 6:36 AM
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I've had a similar situation with Wachovia. I briefly considered making them my permanant bank. One day, I deposited a check from my Citibank account into my Wachovia account. There was MORE than enough money in my Citibank account to cover the check.

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.

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TideGuy
October 28, 2009 12:58 PM
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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.

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SoCalGNX
October 28, 2009 1:38 PM
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Wachovia once put a negative on my spouse's credit history. The only problem was that he had never, ever had any sort of account with them. Do you suppose they were helpful to clear up the misunderstanding?

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That's Consumer007 to you
October 28, 2009 2:31 PM
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I'd be calling the FDIC, the FTC, the Attorney General, etc. etc. etc. until Wachovia explained what they did to the account.

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.

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SlayBelle
October 28, 2009 2:49 PM
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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.

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Newvox
October 28, 2009 6:10 PM
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Two thoughts.

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.

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SNForrester
October 28, 2009 6:54 PM
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I do my banking with Wachovia, happily for the most part. I had a sit down with them recently to go over my accounts and they gave me the hard sell on this Way2Save account.

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.

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West Coast Secessionist
October 28, 2009 8:00 PM
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WOW. And now that Wachovia is part of Wells Fargo this kind of crap is only going to get worse. America's #1 shady ripoff bank!

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Parody0faGirl
October 28, 2009 8:42 PM
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According Wachovia's Online Services Guarantee for Online Banking and Billpay, Wachovia guarantees that they will follow your instructions to complete bill payments on time. Wachovia guarantees that they will work with the companies you paid through their BillPay service to refund you late fees or charges that you incurred due to an error on their part. As long as you have completely adhered to the terms and conditions listed in the longer, more verbose Customer Agreement For Wachovia Online Services they need to honor their guarantee.

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!

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