********************WARNING************ ********
ANOTHER JERSEY GIRL RANT BELOW
My wonderful mortgage lender, CHASE, withdrew this month's mortgage payment from our checking account, WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION. Me, not knowing anything about it, sent my payment in. Today, I find out that we are overdrawn, we have no money in our checking account and have been charged $34 by our bank for insufficient funds. Do you realize that, if a company has your checking account #, they are able to withdraw money from your account wth no questions asked by your bank? There are no safeguards in effect to stop them. They don't have to provide anything to the bank to prove they're authorized, according to the guy I spoke with at our bank. Hey, why not? We know how ethical banks are.
I called Chase to get this straightened out. The CSR was very nice and apologized. He couldn't explain how this happened, but said he could rectify it. Which he proceeded to do, reversing the payment to be returned back to our account. Then he says that the funds will be available WEDNESDAY OR THURSDAY. Totally not acceptable. "May I please speak with your supervisor?"
Supervisor Antonio takes the call. I repeat the story, asking him how he, not only is going to fix this mess but also how will we be reimbursed for the insufficent funds fees, the late fees we're going to incur because we're going to be late paying bills because YOU CLEANED OUT MY CHECKING ACCOUNT!" And lastly, what are they going to do to repair our credit rating, after these late payments go on record? I asked to speak with HIS supervisor. But, of course, being Sat., Antonio was the only one stuck working on the weekend. He was going to ask the authorization dept. to investigate how this happened, but, in the meantime, until he can verify that we did not actually authorize this, there was nothing else he could do today. Again, the authorization dept. doesn't work on weekends. I asked him "why can't you do what I did and go on your website and see that, when you look into our account info, it plainly says we are not set up for pre-authorization. Of course, he can't accept that as proof. So, here I sit. No money, except for the $8.34 i my wallet. Had to put the grocery and prescriptions today on a credit card that just raised our interest rate 12 percentage points.
It's a good thing I planned on catching up on sleep this weekend. It's the only thing I can afford to do.
Flippin' banks and credit card services. I keep repeating myself but it's true; it's a broken system.
ReplyDeleteI watch the Suze Orman show on Sat. 9:00pm CNBC. Tonight's show is about credit cards and their new rules. Things are changing fast, and it's important we keep up on it. I don't always like her delivery, but she's on top of finance.
I am sorry you had to go through this stress today. When a bank makes a mistake, they usually take a few days to fix it, however, they were quick to make the mistake. It's a horrible feeling.
If I lived near you, I'd give you 50.00 bucks.
That is ridiculous....I have a feeling that this going to get worse before it gets better...The stimulus package sounds stupid too! I definately understand how you must feel....hope all works out.
ReplyDeleteOo gosh! Little known fact the boy's assets have been frozen. It's quite entertaining to be the "breadwinner" all be it for a short while. Good luck getting the matter straightened out.
ReplyDeletePurple Flowers -Thanks. I transferred some money from an ING account we have. Hate to touch that account. It's our "safety net" so to speak. We have $100 taken out of our account each week and transferred (now I DID authorize that).
ReplyDeleteAnd PITC, why the heck are the boy's assets frozen? I hope he's not being sued. On a side note, I hope he's not in too foul a mood today. Redemption tonight!