Complaint Review: Bank Of America

Keep in mind, if you had been successful in stopping the checks, the payday loan company would be after you.

If you completed the correct procedure for taking your name off your brother's account - in California at least, I think it requires a form signed by both co-owners - then the bank shouldn't have taken the money. Otherwise the bank was legal in taking it and shouldn't share any blame.

This is a common practice with any bank. My sister-in-law experienced the same problem with Wachovia. She was on my nieces account. My niece bounced several checks and they removed the money (1280.00) from my sister-in-laws account.

If your name is on any account at the bank, they have the right to remove money to pay your debt. They don't know who puts money in but they know you CAN make deposits and DO have access to that money so they take back what is owed to them.

It is not Theft by Deception as you are clearly told in your account agreement that this can happen... no deception here. Since your brother paid the debt you owed the bank (because of your wife), you now owe your brother. Make the payment arrangement with him that you were going to make with the bank.

There really isn't any such thing as a pending check, when a paper check comes in is the first the bank ever knows of it. If you can view them online, it means they have been converted to an electronic transaction, which had to be agreed to. (This is not the case with a Check21 type item, they work like paper checks...just faster)

Your rights, and the rules for returning these items are not the same as with a paper check. When your wife (presumably) agreed to submitting an electronic version of the check, your rights were changed.

All banks have the right of setoff, to recover a loss. There isn't any way of them knowing whose money was in the account, just that there was an account with your name on it, and money in it.

It is unfortunate, and I hope you are able to repay your brother without hardship to either of you, but they acted the same as any other financial institution would act. There was no theft here.

When you opened your account your were given a written copy stating the Terms & Conditions of your account. The right to offset was explained in this.

In addition, you admit that checks were presented which had insufficient funds to cover them. Therefore they are entitled to the funds and they did advise you in advance of their right of offset (although I'm sure you never read your terms and conditions notice...again not the fault of the bank) so there is no theft or deception here...at least not on the part of B of A.

And no, although I am a banker, I don't work for B of A. I'm glad your brother is doing better; it's a shame that YOUR finncial irresponsibility has cost HIM his money.

Banker John

My wife made some very bad dicisions with-out me knowing it and did some pay-day loans. She had to give then post dated checks for them to deposit from our bank account. When I found out what had happened and went on line to look at my account, I saw checks pending for almost $900.00. We did not have $900.00. I went to the bank to stop payment and they would not let me stop payment on pending checks. I did try and stop payment on one the night before I went to the bank.

They charged me with a stop payment charge of $30.00. The Customer Rep at the bank said that " don't worry the checks will be sent back and all you will owe is the NSF chrages and they would help me by setting up a payment program to pay them back. The checks were paid by the bank, even after she told me they would not be paid. And then some more checks came in after that and they were also paid. I had a snow ball affect happening that I could not stop. I went the bank and they denied telling me that the checks would not be processed. There were no funds available to pay any of these checks. I ask them about setting that payment program and they said because of the nature of what had happen, they could not do that now.

When they saw that my name was on my brothers account, that's when they decided to steal his money. That is thief of property. He got better and went back to work and worked very hard to save this money. I don't care anything about clauses in the bank contract, this is thief by deception. Out right stealing my brothers money and I am going to send out messgaes to anyone that will listen to me. We may not get the money back, but before I am done Bank of America, they will wish that they had never met me.

Have a look at your account terms and conditions.
There is a section in there under a heading similar to "right to setoff". Essentially it gives the bank the right to withdraw funds from any account your name may be on, whether you deposit funds in it or not, if you owe the bank money. If you had known about this provision, you may had done more to make sure your name was removed from your brothers account.

Second, how is it mostly the banks fault that you wrote checks against your account without having enough funds? How long did you owe BofA 2190 before they withdrew it from your other account?