Complaint Review: National City Bank - Columbus Ohio

I was going through a bankruptcy, and was told by my lawyer to get a separate bank account to keep my real bank account with Huntington National Bank protected. Since I had received an offer from National City Bank saying they give a $50 bonus to anyone opening a new checking account, I went ahead and opened a checking account with them in mid-2005. I forgot all about he $50 but one day in October 2005, I noticed a $50 deposit in my account that I hadn't made. I investigated and found out that they had given me the $50, and I just needed to keep the account for 6 months, or they would take the $50 back. So, I needed to keep the account until at least December 2005, and since it was just a temporary account, I decided to go ahead and keep it so I wouldn't lose the $50 bonus.

I found out in January 2006, after 2-3 months of not using the checking account at all, that I had neglected to make a deposit to cover an automatic $9.95 payment that goes to my internet service provider each month. By the time I found out (by going online) that the account was overdrawn, they had charged me $34, and $6 a day so that I owed them around $67. Since I reasoned that it really was my fault I had neglected the account for several months, and not gotten there in time to make a $10 deposit to cover the internet provider fee, I went ahead and paid the outrageous $67 in fees and closed the account on Jan. 9, 2006. Case closed, account balance was $0, no more National City Bank account - Yeah!! While at the bank I told them I was glad to get rid of the account and that I had never heard of this outrageous practice of charging people $6 a day overdraft fees. I also told them that I had never received one bank statement in the entire time I had the account, and complained about this. I said I had specifically requested not to have on-line statements when I originally opened the account, but that is what they gave me anyway. 2 or 3 months into having the account, I had even emailed them asking them to quit giving me on line statments, as I had never requested this and asked them to send me statments in the mail, but they have never sent me one statement. (I didn't have a printer that worked at home, and couldn't print out the online statements, so this was completely useless to me. In addition, my internet stopped working, so I couldn't even view my on-line statements. This bank has a crappy website, every single time I would log on, it would say my password was wrong, and then I'd log on again, and it would always work the 2nd time with the exact same password.) Nevertheless, I still owed them all these fees of $67, so I paid them and was just really glad to be rid of National City. I figured they got their $50 back plus extra, Oh well !!

Now, in March 2006, I am shocked to get a letter from a collection agency saying my National City Bank account has just been closed after accumulating $134 of fees. I wondered how a closed account can have fees, since I had closed it months ago. After going on line at a friends house and investigating, I found out they had opened my account back up in order to start charging me fees - an overdraft fee 3 weeks after closing the account, and had been charging me $6 a day every day since then. They opened the account back up in order to put the overdraft fee on it when the same monthly internet service provider automatic debit charge tried to hit the account in late January 2006. So, another $34 fee and a bunch of $6 daily fees accumulated for several months until the new total is now $134.

Meanwhile I am working 60 hours a week, and have little time to deal with this mess, so I call the collection agency and say I wish to dispute the charges. Their name is Allied Interstate. I told them I will not pay these fees, and that the account was supposed to be closed. I ask, "Why didn't National City just not pay the internet service provider automated debit when it tried to hit the account, (since the account was closed) and leave it at that?" (I suspect that this is the way National City Bank makes most of its profit, by scamming people in unfair ways.) Nevertheless, Interstate Allied still leaves me a message every day, harrassing me. They have called me everyday with the same automated phone messages ever since, even though I explained to them that these bank fees are bogus.

Not being able to resolve this with the collection agency, I went to a branch office on a Saturday morning when I'm off work, in a nice part of town where I thought I would get good service, and tried to explain to them that the account should have been closed, and that I had never received any statements or a notice about my overdraft fee caused by the internet provider charge. They claimed that this was because my mail had been returned and asked if I had moved and if my address was correct, and I said that it was, and that I had never moved. They claimed they did not have my apartment number, and tried to make it sound like it was my fault for not giving them the right address. I had given them the correct address when I first got the account. They also said I would have to go to the branch I had closed the account at and take care of it there. I could tell by this lady's attitude, and the way she would take no responsibility for the problem, that this was just a brush off tactic and that this "other branch" wouldn't do anything about it either, and I was right. (I have now figured out that this is part of their scam practices. They target people by offering them the $50 to open a new checking account, never send them bank statements or overdraft notices, and then scam them for $100's of dollars worth of fees. )

Not getting any resolution and having to work all week, I then called the collection agency, Allied Interstate a 2nd time, trying to reason with them, and they threatened me saying they would close my current bank account at The Huntington and take the $134 from my money in that account. (The Huntington is an actual GOOD BANK, if there is such a thing!!)They also said that if I didn't pay up, they would report me to an agency called "Check Service", (I think that was its name), so that I would not be able to open any bank account anywhere in the US for the next 7-10 years. I told them I doubted this was true, and they said that this was a law, and to go ahead and call my bank and check this out, and then call them back and pay the debt. I said I doubted the US Government would let anything like this be a law. I called my bank today and they said that "No, one bank cannot close another banks account and take the money without a court order." The account rep also said that he doubted that Allied Interstate could get a court order to take the $134 from my account at the Huntington. I am considering just never paying the fees to Allied Interstate, since my credit already is ruined by the bankruptcy. Why should they be allowed to make a practice of scamming people like this? I think a bunch of people should all get together and sue them.

Since the clerk at the 1st branch I went to told me I'd have to go to the branch I closed the account at, I went there today, March 14th 2006. They told me that since the account was closed, and that this happened back in January, that I would have to call the collection agency. Since I had already called Interstate to dispute the charges twice, and knew that all Interstate would say is that "they are attempting to collect a debt, and that I should talk to the bank", in addition to threatening me, I told the lady at the bank that calling them again would be useless. (This is the banks way of escaping responsibilty for their wrong practices.) They will take no responsibility for not sending me an overdraft notice so that I could be aware of the internet service provider charge still trying to hit the closed bank account. Due to the bank clerk's attitudes at both of the branches I had gone to, I am now convinced that they do this to people regularly - since neither of them seemed the least surprised at what they had done to me, nor interested in trying to get rid of the charges, they just tried to find excuses and ways to blame it back on me. They defended themselves by saying I should have called and corrected my address, when there was nothing wrong with my address as I had given it to them in the first place, not to mention the fact that the letter from the collection agency mysteriously made it to me in March with no problem. They tried to blame the problem back on me that I never got a notice of either of the 2 overdrafts because my mail was returned. If this was true, why did the letter saying they had turned my account over to a collection agency and "re-closed" the account after putting $134 of fees on it mysteriously make its way to me, in March, but yet none of my bank statements and overdraft notices could get to me? I have lived in the same place for 10 years, this is just their excuse for their unethical practices.

So today (March 14th) while at the bank, I even offered to pay the $34 overdraft fee they had charged me after the account was closed, thinking that maybe they would compromise and let me pay this fee, since my automated charge really did try to hit the account after it was closed, and that maybe they would compromise and just accept the $34 and be willing to cancel all the $6 fees. This seemed quite fair to me, since they had never notified me that I had an overdraft back in January 2006 in the first place, but they said there was nothing they could do about it, and that that I would have to call the collection agency. I told her I had done this twice already and that it was a useless waste of time.

So, the collection agency tells me to talk to the bank, and the bank clerk tells me to talk to another branch, and then that branch tells me I'll have to talk to the collection agency, so all I've done is make a big circle and waste my time. Its obvious none of them will do a thing about this problem, and that this is all just a well-orchestrated bank scam, and a way for National City bank to boost their profits. I'm sure they have this collection agency hired just to collect from all the people they are scamming. Once they've turned you over to the collection agency the bank says they can't touch your bank account because its been closed and turned over to the collection agency, but if you call the collection agency, they say they can't see the activity in your bank account and they can't do anything about the problem, and that you need to talk to the bank. Around and around... Also, its funny how the bank can open up your closed account to put bogus fees on the account, but they say they're not allowed to open the account back up in order to take the bogus fees off.

I'm sure they target poor people and people from other nations, and then don't send them statements or overdraft notices, so that they can then assess all their outrageous overdraft fees, and then charge more fees on the overdraft fees. I have never known a bank to be so impossible to deal with and so unwilling to do anything about the problem they have basically caused. Of course I'm not going to be calling the bank or going on line to check my balance of my closed bank account, because, DUHH, IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE CLOSED!!! My advice is that no one ever uses the National City Bank for anything. They hopefully will be bought by some other bigger, more ethical bank and be gotten rid in the near future, or hopefully, be sued in some class action lawsuit for their bad business practices. DON'T USE NATIONAL CITY FOR ANYTHING!!!

Carol

columbus, Ohio
U.S.A.