Complaint Review: Bank Of Texas

You can call me all the names you want. I've been in the same situation four times. One time the company I worked for went out of business. The next time, I quit. I went from 87 hours a week to part-time, same thing, they were trying to get you to quit. The third time I straight out quit when I found out the owner was paying a part-time girl more then me, after 8 years. Go figure. The last time I quit again. I put in 164 hours in 11 days. Got my first check. Figured if I was going to make $3 an hour, I might as well work for myself. 2 days later was in IC for a week. I've been out of work up to 4 months at a time. I was just prudient enough to put something aside when I was working for the times I wasn't. If I knew I'd be charged thousands of dollars in NSF fees, I'd have found a different way to do it. I could have collected unemployement at times, but I didn't. I figured someone else might need it more then me.

First it's legit to use the overdraft protection like a loan, that's what it's intended for. But they will figure a way to charge you for every "item" which makes the loan very expensive if you borrow small amounts at a time. Quit writing small checks and using the debit card. Checks and the debit card are NOT your friend when your balance is near or below zero. To minimize the cost of the loan, get a bunch of cash from the ATM all at once so you pay only one fee on it.

It is obvious that some people have never been in this situation. When either float a check for gas or don't go to the odd job that will make you the little income you will get, you may have to do it. If you have already late your bills go late and they want to foreclose on your house, you may have to pay a few dollars more than you have. When there is no food in your house and you have a child, you may have to write that check for bread and peanut butter. All I'm saying is that this practice accrued easily 10 times the number of fees it would have if they had processed the checks in the order they were written. The overdraft amount would have been minimal and I am more than willing to pay the fees since I accrued them. The problem is when you account is over drawn by $100 and you are hit with over $650 in fees on that $100. That is what prevents me from catching up. If the checks had been paid in the order they were written, that particular instance would have only cost me $60 in fees, which is easy enough to recover from.

If all you people have to do is kick people when they are down, just because they spoke against a practice they feel is wrong, then you are truly pathetic.

I'm not going to post on this any more. The people on this site apparently have nothing to do but be unnecessarily. For future reference, if you don't have anything constructive or helpful to say, don't post on this thread.

'so it isn't like we were living beyond our means.' Yes, you WERE living beyond your means. You were writing checks for more money than you had in your account. Stop making so-called excuses, blaming things on the bank, when it all comes down to a case of taking responsibility for your own actions.

Cory, what is the point of being a jerk? I tried to find alternate methods of paying for things. I took odd jobs for extra money I tried to get loans. But how would you feel if ALL of your income was gone at once? I don't have any extraneous bills like credit cards or outstanding loans, so it isn't like we were living beyond our means. It is just kind of hard to pay bills when there isn't anything coming in. And no one wants to help you out financially when you don't have any stable income. I tried working with the bank as well as other institutions to keep this from happening, but when the choice is overdraw the account or lose your house it makes a big difference. Especially when you have a family to support. If you want to act all high and mighty, go for it. This is a place to report Rip-Offs. That is what I did. If you want to bash me for making sure my family was fed and had a warm place to sleep, I hope it makes you feel like a big person. I truly hope that you are never put in this situation. It would be a shame to see an ego as big as yours utterly destroyed.

It would be cheaper to just pay things late, and adjust your spending and lifestyle to equal your means.

You made a choice to float these checks, now you want the bank to eat the fees that YOU agreed to when you opened the account.

The bank is a for profit business, and it is not thier fault you were laid off for 4 months.

Why would you knowingly accrue fees that you cannot pay?

All of that money you paid in fees could have paid your mortgage, gas, and food! Those items would have just been purchased on a different schedule.

You paid for a convenience. Get over it.

You knew you were writing hot checks and you knew you were racking up thousands of dollars in NSF fees but you just kept doing it. For six months at that. "I'm at the point that we can't recover and we'll have to close the account in a negative state and make them eat the fees". You should have closed the account six months ago. That shows a real mature, responsible, adult mentality. Good luck in EVER trying to open an account anyplace else. Which is probably for the best anyway. The main problem here was you were using the "Overdraft Protection" as a loan system which it isn't and wasn't meant to be.

D in Naples,
Not every bank clears highest to lowest checks.
Credit Unions and local state banks don't.
Many times these type financial institutions will also help you recover.

It's only the national banks that won't, and rip you off royally.

Since we now have Check 21, where banks can immediately clear your checks to pay bills, but take months to make your deposits available, I have decided to take out all my money every payday and buy US money orders to pay my bills. No fuss, no muss!

Sure costs a lot less than those outrageous fees they charge for the one check you forgot about.
Also, D, you could take a refresher course in compassion.

Yes, I would rather them do that because of the overdraft protection on the account. None of the checks would be returned because I have overdraft protection on the account. That means if it were done the other way it would reduce my fees to one or two and the checks would still be paid under that part of my account agreement.

Also, the bank treats this as a short term loan even if they don't use the word loan. And as such this really constitutes excessive loan fees and would be illegal.

A Question for you, So you would rather have them pay all your small check that you write for food, telephone, cable and everything and then return the larger checks like for your mortgage/rent and your car payment? And learn to keep an accurate checkbook balance and when you don't have enough money in your account to pay the check, DON'T WRITE IT!!!!!! That will save you the thousands of dollars that you are giving away. Please respond. And by the way, EVERY BANK pays the checks from highest to lowest. I look forward to your response.