Complaint Review: Regions Bank - Birmingham Alabama

All...ALL you need to do to eliminate overdraft fees once and for all is to keep a written record and an on-going running balance!  Apparently you are just too damned lazy to even do that!  When people here try to explain to you WHY you have had overdraft fees, oh yes, they are "upity".  In other words, "who do you thing you are confusing me with the facts!"  What a sorry individual.

Hmm... Jim may be right that the opt out does not affect ACH. If you take a look at the bill, the 3rd paragraph from the bottom said "Prohibits a depository institution from charging a non-sufficient fund fee for any ATM or debit card transaction." This may be a loop hole because ACH is neither a debit card nor ATM use. Another site here also talks about new rules for check and automatic bill payments (and your ACH may fall into this category). In other words, your bank may or may not let you out of the overdraft protection/practice.

Speaking of cashing a check at your bank, I think it is fair. If the person who cashes the check is you, the owner of the account, and this situation occurs, then it would be unfair. If someone else (regardless the relation to you) comes in to cash the check, then the bank could say that the bank has no relation to the person and would easily tag fees on it. Unfortunately, your fater did not turn down but went ahead (as you suggested the situation). I still see that this is not really an issue.

But your attitude of thinking you know it all is just ridiculous

- I never said I know it all.  I just am saying that when it comes to these "laws" you claim to know so much about..you are WRONG.

 That would also make an excellent YouTube video title, "Bank Abruptly Closes Customer's Account Due To Differing Opinions."

- PLEASE...PLEASE..PLEASE post the link to this site when you make this video.  I want to be view number 1.

In regards to automated bill payments, while the law may or may not require it, I clearly stated I did not want ANY type of protection. 

- Oh so now you admit that the law that you know so much doesn't exist.  Well you say "may", but I challange you to post the SPECIFIC law if you still won't admit 100% that you were wrong about the law.  By the way based on this statement you think I could tell the bank I want the red carpet rolled out when I visit their branch and have an ATM installed at my house.  However, it doesn't make it illegal if they don't.

Therefore, when I told them I didn't want any kind of protection for anything they should have notified me if there were circumstances where they would cover it and charge me a fee.

- Ummm...They did.  It was in the Account Disclosures you got when you opened the account.  You did read them..right?  In fact I bet that they made the fee schedule quite easy to read if you had taken the time.

 I still consider these fees to be completely ridiculous.  I'm not the only one. 

- These fees are OPTIONAL.  The only way you get these fees is if YOU fail to manage YOUR account and attempt to spend more than you have available.  By the way...this may be a shock to you but I think the fees are ridiculous as well, which is why I manage my account and make sure that I don't get hit by these fees.

Charging $35 for covering a $0.75 purchase.

- Actually they would also charge a $35 fee for a $0.01 purchase. 

There's a reason the government passed a law in regards to this.  It's because banks were making insane amounts of money for doing little to nothing. 

- Actually they passed the law because a very small minority couldn't manage their account and were being charged per the terms THEY agreed to, and were very vocal because they thought it wasn't fair that they had to manage their account and actually take responsibility for their action.  The only thing this law did was make the person opt-into this type of overdraft protection, it didn't make the amount of money they were charging illegal.  So they can still charge that same $35(or more). 

 You posted about Iberia Bank - don't like the way the banks do business?  Don't use a bank!! And NO I don't work for them or any other bank.  So see a pattern here?? If you have your own account what are you doing cashing your paychecks at another bank??

Jim, I could care less who you work for.  You, as with Robert, also have an uppity attitude.  But with you know it alls this world is just FULL of knowledge.  Please read my response to Robert in regards to the "regulation" you two are so knowledgeable of.

Robert, your uppity think you know it all attitude is quite sickening.  If your opinion differs than mine, then that's fine.  But your attitude of thinking you know it all is just ridiculous.  First and foremost, if a bank closes my account because of this then that's fine.  That would tell me that the bank doesn't like it when customers have a differing opinion than their own.  That would also make an excellent YouTube video title, "Bank Abruptly Closes Customer's Account Due To Differing Opinions."

Now, in response to your babbling.  I know nothing?  Amazing!  You know nothing about me yet seem to think I know nothing because my opinion differs from yours.  Wow!  In regards to automated bill payments, while the law may or may not require it, I clearly stated I did not want ANY type of protection.  Therefore, when I told them I didn't want any kind of protection for anything they should have notified me if there were circumstances where they would cover it and charge me a fee.  I still consider these fees to be completely ridiculous.  I'm not the only one.  There's a reason the government passed a law in regards to this.  It's because banks were making insane amounts of money for doing little to nothing.  Charging $35 for covering a $0.75 purchase.

As for me getting the money out of the ATM.  Please read the article.  My father went to cash the check.  He was charged.  He's not the debating type.  He just wanted to cash the check and get out of there.  As I had told him, he should have just brought me the check, I would have voided and tore it up, went inside, and gotten the money directly out my account.  As for why he didn't go to his bank, once again... READ.  My bank was closer.  That's why we went to my bank instead.  I don't know how much money he did or didn't have in his account.  So your presumption truly makes you look like an a*s.

Now, if you'd like, I can put you an my Christmas list to send you a shoe horn so that you can get your foot out of your mouth.  If you have a differing opinion then state it, but don't sit here and try to make presumptions about someone you know nothing about and then act like a complete a*s while doing so.

Today I mailed off a letter to the CEO of Regions Bank, O. B. Grayson Hall, Jr.  I notified him of this report so that if he or a representative of his company wanted to post a rebuttal they could do so.  The letter addressed the same issues mentioned in my RipOff Report.  It's my hopes that Regions does abolish the unethical fee to cash checks issued through their own bank.  If not then at least it's here for the public to see.  Quite possibly, the next step will to create a YouTube video to get more exposure on the Internet.

The fact of the matter is that even though the representative would not admit to any wrongdoing I knew better.

- You know NOTHING.  They are correct.  The law you are trying to reference was the requirement that you had to "opt-in" to Standard Debit Card overdraft protection.  This ONLY applies to Point of Sale and ATM transactions with your DEBIT card.  It does NOT apply to checks or ACH transactions.  For those the bank retained the option to pay the Check/ACH or not.  If they decide to pay it they have the right to charge you an Overdraft fee.

But here is something else you apparently don't know.  If they reject it, you are then subject to a "Non-Sufficent Funds" fee, which can be as much as an Overdraft fee.  So in this case not only do they reject the ACH(like you wanted), they charge you an NSF fee.  But you get the added bonus of having the company that the ACH bounced to charging you a returned item fee and probably additional fees and Interest.

Oh and yes this is totally legal, and every bank has this same policy(and has had this policy for decades).

As to why they "changed their tune".  Well honestly it was a money issue.  Even if they are right it was simpler(and cheaper) for them to just try and satisfy you with a credit.  But they are correct it is a "courtesy" credit.  If this same situation happens again your "threats" may or may not work.  They may "call your bluff".  Where eventually they feel that you are just too much trouble and decide one day(without advance notice) to close your account because you are just too much of a bother.  Oh and yes, that is totally legal as well.

As for the check cashing fee...again standard for NON-CUSTOMERS.  Why didn't he go to his bank?  Oh...because if he didn't have $100 in his account he would not have been allowed to "cash" it.  But then here is a question, since you went to the bank with him, why didn't you just take the $100 out of the ATM for no fee? 

Do you want to know why banks started charging this fee?  Because chronic "overdrafters" complained enough and got the laws changed where the banks were required to change their overdraft policies.  Well they are not charities and had to make up for that in other ways.  Non-Customer check cashing fees is one of those ways.

Oh and one other thing...had the tables been turned and your father wrote you a check.  Had you gone to his bank, you would have been charged a fee as well.

Your checking account was overdrawn and, as such, obligated you to pay an overdraft fee.  Of course, this didn't need to happen.  As far as the overdraft fee, this never has to be paid either.  You went round and round with them, taking up your time, of course, this didn't need to happen. It finally got to the point you convinced them of your vast knowledge of banking regulations and banking oversight, they relented and dropped the fee.  I imagine the scene was something like this: They closed down operations for a few minutes and all gathered around a speaker phone listening intently and taking notes because they were hearing the voice of a knowledgable person.  They went away grateful they had, for a few minutes, the instruction which they never received from corporate.  When the call ended, senior staff and management ran back to their offices hoping and praying this was the end of it and they spent the rest of the day with their tail between their legs. 

The day the prof in law school talked about banking regulations, you must not have attended.  Or maybe you decided to go fishing when the Bar Association had its regular seminar about this specialty.  First, the so-called Overdraft Protection Law which you are so knowledgable about, DOES NOT APPLY to regularly scheduled, pre-authorized debits.  It does not.  Don't try to tell me or anyone else here it does, because YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.  Secondly, the FDIC has ABSOLUTELY NO OVERSIGHT in this matter.  It does not!  Don't try to tell me it does because obviously YOU don't have a clue what you're talking about.  In all probability, they got rid of the fee because they wanted to get rid of you...another know-it-all who has their head up their a--!  Of course, the other possibility is this is nothing more than a made up smokescreen designed to discredit the bank because YOU have run up huge overdraft fees.

"This didn't need to happen."  Remember that phrase?  Any and every case of those wailing, whining and crying about overdraft fees is for ONE reason and ONE reson alone...the account holder is too damned lazy to keep written records and maintain a running balance.  That my friend is as obvious as the rising sun.

Oh yes, don't waste the effort claiming I work for them, because I don't!  Instead, direct your efforts to properly managing a checking account, which you apparently have no clue of either!