FIRSTMERIT BANK 24 BOGUS OVERDRAFT FEES!!! NOT MY ERROR. NOT THE BANKS ERROR. THEN WHOSE IS IT? overdraft fees. Louisville Ohio
So I'm the kind of person who is very meticulous about my checking account. I write down my debits as I go, I keep all my receipts, and I do my bank reconciliation every bank statement I get. I also open anything from FirstMerit the minute I get it.
Interesting enough, I received 2 letters from them today. One dated 10/13 and one dated 10/20, stating I had overdrawn my account, at $25 a pop, I got kind of upset. I grabbed my bank statement, my receipts, and my check register and went through everything. I was missing a $2.87 charge... that was it.
Obviously very upset, I went to the local FirstMerit branch and spoke with Laura, it happens to be that Darla the asst manager and the actual bank manager are out of the office till a further date. I sat down with Laura and she went through my check register, my bank statement, and their only POS system...and I quote "Well Kirstyn, everything adds up in your register and the system and your not missing any debits"...
My first thought was "then why is my account at -$567 dollars?" She then proceeded to tell me that somewhere I must have missed something...Didn't she just tell me that I didn't miss anything? So she kept looking through my register and her system and came to the conclusion of "ITS NOT A BANK ERROR AND ITS NOT YOUR ERROR. I DONT KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU." Well someone better figure that out REALLY quickly. I currently have 24 overdraft fees on my account.
My mom decided to call the bank, a BANK EMPLOYEE stated to my mother "Well, my account is severly overdrafted too, but no one can figure out why or where"... Its obvious that somewhere along the lines, they aren't doing something correctly when the employees that work there are having problems. This whole conversation ended with Laura taking my phone number and my SSN on a yellow sticky pad (which makes me feel even safer... :\) and telling me that she is going to lunch and within the next couple weeks that someone will contact me, but unfortunatly they can't do anything about it. Hate to say it, I can't wait a couple weeks and they are going to do something... I have a car payment, a cell phone payment, and other such bills to pay.
So were back to square one... my register being mathmatically correct and no one know where the error came from.
I would highly advised anyone NOT to use FirstMerit bank... I know numerous people who have had the same problem.
I am going to the coorperate office to get answers from someone.
Kirstyn
Louisville, Ohio
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Kirstyn
Louisville,Ohio,
U.S.A.
And it happened again!
#4Author of original report
Fri, November 28, 2008
This time i have overdraft protection that didn't kick in? I even went into the bank to check my balance and the teller gave me the wrong information.... this is just a great way to do banking huh? so i'm officially done....
and btw- Laura at the louisville branch has no clue what she is doing and keep switching her story around....
Kirstyn
Louisville,Ohio,
U.S.A.
and this is what happened...
#4Author of original report
Sat, November 01, 2008
So i went into the bank today and spoke to the branch manager, and this is what she had to say...":silence:" yep... thats it- she told me that she coudln't do anything about it and that I pretty much have to eat the fees... which by the way- have been moved up to 30... apparently there were more unposted sales that they hit me with more overdrafts fees for. The funny thing is is that she tried to tell me when i received my mail to save her butt because there was no previous notices sent out but she swore up and down that there was. Darla then informed me that she would speak to her DM and see what she would do... and told me that waiving them all, or even half, would be HIGHLY unlikely. If it wasn't for my parents being there, I would have had some choice words. She was very rude to me and very unwilling to help me out.
I just wanted to let you guys know that even when you complain and they know it is their fault... they will change their story to suit themselves.
FirstMerit is a scam!!! They are a bunch of cheating lying thievs that don't care if you lose your car or you can't feed your family...maybe they should stop thinking about themselves and stop trying to milk all of the money they can out of people who have to live paycheck to paycheck....
This is the email that my boyfriend sent their customer service:
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 1:28 PM
To: 'customerservice@firstmerit.com'
Subject: Still Poor Customer Service
This is now my second email regarding your bank's unwillingness to alert and work with customers. I now truly believe through experiences of my own and those I have spoken with who used to be your customers that your banking institution is not in business to be a customer friendly bank. It has become more than apparent that you are in business to take as much money from the customer as humanly possible when an error arises. It can not possibly be justified that an overdraft of $5 costs your company $37.50 and repeated attachment of the overdraft fee when the customer is not given any type of alert or warning to the fact that funds in their accnt are running low is just absurd, especially coming from the fact that most accnts are over drafting because of your business practices. These practices being to draw out debits from accnts done in the same day as a direct deposit that goes into an accnt at midnight as well as passing the largest debits through an account first causing it to overdraft the large debit as well as all the smaller debits to the accnt. I find this to be EXTREMELY detrimental to the customers you have who live paycheck to paycheck and are willing to eat one overdraft charge in order to buy their kids dinner. Instead of understanding the working families situation and taking the money we/they are willing to give you you proceed to hammer them for money you already know they do not have. This, in my opinion, is a terrible way to build a good relationship with your customers. Instead of beating money out of people that you know they don't have be willing to take the fees that the customer is knowingly doing, you are still making your money and the customer doesn't have to suffer anymore than necessary. In these hard times I would hope our banks would be wanting to build the trust of the customer and taking a customer's entire paycheck is not the way to do this. Please contact me in regards to this, if at all possible, at (330)581-****. I'm hoping we can resolve the issue I am experiencing with you and will not have to give up on your business and take my funds elsewhere.
So there.
Kirstyn
Louisville,Ohio,
U.S.A.
and this is what happened...
#4Author of original report
Sat, November 01, 2008
So i went into the bank today and spoke to the branch manager, and this is what she had to say...":silence:" yep... thats it- she told me that she coudln't do anything about it and that I pretty much have to eat the fees... which by the way- have been moved up to 30... apparently there were more unposted sales that they hit me with more overdrafts fees for. The funny thing is is that she tried to tell me when i received my mail to save her butt because there was no previous notices sent out but she swore up and down that there was. Darla then informed me that she would speak to her DM and see what she would do... and told me that waiving them all, or even half, would be HIGHLY unlikely. If it wasn't for my parents being there, I would have had some choice words. She was very rude to me and very unwilling to help me out.
I just wanted to let you guys know that even when you complain and they know it is their fault... they will change their story to suit themselves.
FirstMerit is a scam!!! They are a bunch of cheating lying thievs that don't care if you lose your car or you can't feed your family...maybe they should stop thinking about themselves and stop trying to milk all of the money they can out of people who have to live paycheck to paycheck....
This is the email that my boyfriend sent their customer service:
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 1:28 PM
To: 'customerservice@firstmerit.com'
Subject: Still Poor Customer Service
This is now my second email regarding your bank's unwillingness to alert and work with customers. I now truly believe through experiences of my own and those I have spoken with who used to be your customers that your banking institution is not in business to be a customer friendly bank. It has become more than apparent that you are in business to take as much money from the customer as humanly possible when an error arises. It can not possibly be justified that an overdraft of $5 costs your company $37.50 and repeated attachment of the overdraft fee when the customer is not given any type of alert or warning to the fact that funds in their accnt are running low is just absurd, especially coming from the fact that most accnts are over drafting because of your business practices. These practices being to draw out debits from accnts done in the same day as a direct deposit that goes into an accnt at midnight as well as passing the largest debits through an account first causing it to overdraft the large debit as well as all the smaller debits to the accnt. I find this to be EXTREMELY detrimental to the customers you have who live paycheck to paycheck and are willing to eat one overdraft charge in order to buy their kids dinner. Instead of understanding the working families situation and taking the money we/they are willing to give you you proceed to hammer them for money you already know they do not have. This, in my opinion, is a terrible way to build a good relationship with your customers. Instead of beating money out of people that you know they don't have be willing to take the fees that the customer is knowingly doing, you are still making your money and the customer doesn't have to suffer anymore than necessary. In these hard times I would hope our banks would be wanting to build the trust of the customer and taking a customer's entire paycheck is not the way to do this. Please contact me in regards to this, if at all possible, at (330)581-****. I'm hoping we can resolve the issue I am experiencing with you and will not have to give up on your business and take my funds elsewhere.
So there.