Miguel's Story

After falling on some financial hard times my checking account was wavering
in the lower numbers, and was consistently overdrafting. I was getting hit
by nearly $300 per week in overdraft fees, so after searching online I found
that you could "opt out" of their overdraft protection service by calling
them and requesting its removal. I read that people had gone to their banks
to request its removal but had been told that they needed to call the number
on the back of their debit cards in order for it to be done, and now I know
why.

On 10/9/08 I called and specifically opted out of my overdraft protection
service, and was told that it would take up to 7 business days to take
effect. I complained that it should not take that long because I would
incur a lot of overdraft fees during that time, and they stated that it was
the amount of time necessary, etc... Today on 10/22/08, 9 business days
later, I check my account and it's once again in the negative, it looks like
I'm about to get hit with 3 more overdraft fees totaling $99. I once again
called their service number and here's what I was told "Our records show
that you requested a stop on your automatic savings plan, we don't have any
records showing that you cancelled your courtesy payment protection plan."
Now, had I done this in person I would have received something in writing at
the bank, it's fairly obvious that they make you call so that they can pull
this kind of trickery and make it a "your word against theirs" kind of
thing. So now I have to once again cancel my payment protection plan, but
this time I'm having them do it at the bank when I go there later today.
I'll probably still get socked with the overdraft fees, and need to wait
another set amount of business days before this one goes into effect, within
that time I'll be opening an account at Bank of America which at the very
least has fees that are $10 lower than this scam bank.

As a reference to others out there that probably got scammed on this one as
well, I believe that regardless of their service contract that I have
sufficient proof to file a small claims report should they refuse to fund my
overdraft fees this time around. Small claims courts work very differently
in terms of evidence, and tend to find things like this extremely suspicious
and may generally rule in your favor. Simply go there with a written
transcript of your conversation, along with an explanation that why would
you in your right mind cancel an automatic savings plan that would not be
able to overdraw your account when you're getting socked with $300 of
overdraft fees a week. Generally a judge would look at it this way: which
person or business has the most to gain by causing this situation?

Peter's Note

I never knew you could opt out of overdraft protection. Good info. Here is an interesting article on overdraft protection.