TCF Bank stole $800 from me Multiple, Colorado

Kreighton"

When you added another person to your account you made them co owner of the account, including all funds contained within.

Because this new person had a old debt with the bank, the bank had the right to seize the funds to pay for the debt they owed to the bank.

The debt never became your debt, but since this new person was added to your account, your money became his/hers. 

The bank merely took his/her money.  Unfortunately it was all your money until you added this new person.  The Bank did nothing wrong.

You really should check about the financial history of someone when you add them as a co owner of your bank account.

I would close this account, and open up a bank account somewhere else.  But under no circumstances should you add this person's name to the account.  The bank may not let you close the account if this person still owes the bank money, because they found the goose that laid the golden egg, and there is a good chance they will siphon off all your funds. 

If you are trying to let this person have access to the money in case you die, then add them as a POD beneficiary.  (Payable Upon Death).  This way the bank cannot seize any of the money, until after you are dead.

No, not the bank. Sue the person you added to the account. They had to know about the outstanding debt and you shouldn't be penalized. My understanding of banking law is that if the person you added to your account had an outstanding debt with TCF, then they CAN legally take the money from your account. It's determined to be a "joint" account, such as that between husband and wife.

It totally sucks that they were unresponsive to your concerns. I've never heard of this bank but they certainly don't sound consumer friendly. I'm glad you got them black listed :-)

Thank you for your service!

 

They were within their rights to do that.  They most likely evoked the "Right to Offset" clause in your account agreement.  This basically says that if anyone on an account is delinquent in another account at their bank, they have the right to take the money from the good account to pay for the delinquent amount on the bad account. 

Just about every financial institution has this same clause, so if this is the sole reason they are being listed as "not military friendly" then you are going to have no banks left to go to.

You can complain and try and argue with them all day long, but it is legal.  So don't expect them to refund any of the money into your account.  Your only recourse right now would be to go after the person who you added to your account in Civil court.  Then hope you have better luck getting them to pay you back than the bank did.  Because if they had paid back the bank you would not be in this situation now. 

What you experienced was due to an often overlooked clause called the right to offset (or some similar language in your account agreement). Put simply, the bank reserves the right to transfer funds from one account that are somehow linked to another account. Let's say that somebody severely overdrafts his business account but has a personal checking or savings account at the same bank. The bank would then transfer the funds to cover the delinquent account.

The bank could also transfer money from someone's account to cover a spose's delinquent balance or their son's delinquent balance, an older relative or even a business partner. By adding that person to your account, the bank was legally able to take money from you to cover this person's debt because this person was now on both accounts.

I personally oppose this practice because the bank gives no notice of the funds to be withdrawn and the account holder can suffer serious consequences even though they have not mismanaged their accounts.

I certainly feel for you. TCF loves to assess fees. I'm sure there was some way that they could have worked with you to stop the fees from being tacked on, particularly since 1.) the previous debt won't yours and 2.) you're serving in the military. The fact is that they didn't want to help. They may have had the RIGHT to settle the previous debt; however, the fees they charged were unconscionable. Congress finally passed legislation to outlaw such fees; that law takes effect later this month.

Just today, my wife and I went a few rounds with the morons at TCF Bank. We were unhappy because they charged us $70 in "overdraft fees." The problem was that our account was never overdrawn. The teller at our branch printed a page showing out transactions and the running account balance. Their own running balance clearly shows that we had available funds in our account at all times, but they refused to reverse the erroneous "overdraft fees."

After the trip to our local branch, my wife called TCF "customer service." While the telephone banker continued to justify the fees, she did eventually agree to credit $35 of the $70 back to our account. They'll soon be getting a letter from my attorney. If they still refuse to return the money they stole from our account, I will sue them (yes...for $35. These people have screwed us one too many times).

In the recent past, these greedy bastards have also reversed one of our substantial business deposits because the name on the checks didn't match the name on our business account. Of course, when we set up our business account, we were required to provide copies of our business registration documents, including our registered trade names. Not only did we make them aware that we'd be receiving checks in our various (legally registered) trade names, we had been successfully depositing checks in our account under those trade names for over 2 years. For some reason, TCF chose to reverse one major deposit and sent the endorsed checks back to us via regular, first class mail. We were lucky that our checks weren't lost. When we went to the branch to complain, we never received an apology for the fact that they had deprived us of the use of OUR money for 7 or 8 days. We were fortunate that we didn't have any of our checks bounce during that period. I think TCF reversed our deposit in hopes of generating some NSF fees. As hard as they fight to steal my money, I have to wonder if they're not on the verge of failure. If they're not, they certainly should be! TCF Bank isn't customer friendly. They're dishonest and greedy. My wife and I will be moving our accounts to a financial institution which is more appreciative of our business.   

You can always depend on replies from Robert and Edgeman to come to the poor banks defense..but has anyone ever seen ANY CSR from ANY bank ever respond or rebut to a complaint lodged against their bank? Don't hold your breath in it either.

The bank defenders will always harp on contracts, clauses, terminology and the banks "legal" rights..and not unlike the bank...ignore the circumstances.

All the "right to whatever" aside....if I was an officer at this bank, I would take ALL factors into consideration.

1) You apparently were unaware that the person you added to the account had a delinquency with this bank.

2) You were apparently unaware that your account would be charged to cover this persons delinquency.

3) WITHOUT NOTICE...a debt was applied to your account by this bank, which in turn directly caused you to overdraft the account.

4) The BANK charged fees for these overdrafts in which the transactions that caused said overdrafts could have been declined giving you fair chance to determine the cause of the overdrafts..or notified you in advance that they were charging you for someone elses delinquency..or at the very least..forgive the overdraft fees taking these circumstances into consideration.

5) You are in the military risking your life so these bankers and employees can continue to be free to pillage and plunder their customers. Not to say that just because you are in the military during war time gives you any more rights then a civilian..but certainly it would and should be a factor of consideration when this whole situation was not caused by any malfeasance (aka wrongdoing) on your part.

I think putting all the BS aside...these factors deserve consideration and you had every right and reason to post a complaint here..it is valid.

Return home safe and thanks for your service..it is appreciated by most of us.

"You can always depend on replies from Robert and Edgeman to come to the poor banks defense..but has anyone ever seen ANY CSR from ANY bank ever respond or rebut to a complaint lodged against their bank? Don't hold your breath in it either."

As anybody who has taken the time to read my rebuttal knows, I did not defend the bank on this one. I explained how it happened and mentioned that I oppose this policy. By the way, the answer to your question is yes. Striderq works for a bank and we had a fellow from Wachovia who posted here for a while.

"The bank defenders will always harp on contracts, clauses, terminology and the banks "legal" rights..and not unlike the bank...ignore the circumstances."

No circumstances were ignored. I simply offered an explanation as to how it happened.

"All the "right to whatever" aside....if I was an officer at this bank, I would take ALL factors into consideration."

No, you wouldn't. You would work within your employer's policies or they would find somebody else who will.

"1) You apparently were unaware that the person you added to the account had a delinquency with this bank."

According to the report, yes.

"2) You were apparently unaware that your account would be charged to cover this persons delinquency."

That's exactly what the Right To Offset section in the account agreement covers.

"3) WITHOUT NOTICE...a debt was applied to your account by this bank, which in turn directly caused you to overdraft the account."

This is exactly why I oppose the right to offset. As soon as somebody at the bank realizes that somebody who owes them money has another account, the bank can just swoop in and transfer the funds without notifying anybody else on the account.

"4) The BANK charged fees for these overdrafts in which the transactions that caused said overdrafts could have been declined giving you fair chance to determine the cause of the overdrafts..or notified you in advance that they were charging you for someone elses delinquency..or at the very least..forgive the overdraft fees taking these circumstances into consideration."

I do think that the bank should forgive at least the overdraft fees from transactions that were pending when the money was transferred if not more. However, the OP should pursue the woman who had the delinquent balance in the first place and have her pay him back. Legally speaking, that's his best option.

"5) You are in the military risking your life so these bankers and employees can continue to be free to pillage and plunder their customers. Not to say that just because you are in the military during war time gives you any more rights then a civilian..but certainly it would and should be a factor of consideration when this whole situation was not caused by any malfeasance (aka wrongdoing) on your part."

Nobody is claiming that the OP did anything wrong.

"I think putting all the BS aside...these factors deserve consideration and you had every right and reason to post a complaint here..it is valid."

Nobody is claiming otherwise.

"Return home safe and thanks for your service..it is appreciated by most of us."

As somebody who actively supports our military, I concur.

RonnyG quipped:

The bank defenders will always harp on contracts, clauses, terminology and the banks "legal" rights..and not unlike the bank...ignore the circumstances.

Truth Detector answers:

Newsflash for you, RonnyG:

This is a nation of laws.

Once you sign a contract, you don't get to invalidate it on demand when "circumstances" creep up.

"Legal" rights are what give protections to you, me, the OP - and yes, even BANKS. Once the OP added a deadbeat to the account, he assumed responsibility for this sort of action. He should take it as a lesson learned: Never, EVER add ANYONE to your bank account lest you suffer these consequences. 

As for the bank, it was left holding the bag on a previous debt - and now the deadbeat has a bank account at the same institution with money in it. Only a complete moron believes that a bank that was left holding the bag for a debt shouldn't reclaim that money from a bank account owned by the same person.

As for you, RonnyG, with each passing post you become more shrill and delusional.

Think about what you are saying. If I co-signed a loan for my kid, and my kid didn't pay the loan, my credit would be stained and the bank would come after ME for the money. Guess whose fault that is?

1. MINE, for co-signing for an irresponsible person

2. My kid's, for failing to pay as agreed

Guess whose fault it ISN'T? The BANK'S...just like this instance in the right to offset.

Seriously, have the courtesy to put down the pipe (or bottle...didn't you post drunk once before, Ronny?) before you post at ROR. Insinuating that legality should be ignored on a whim makes you come off as a lunatic.

Yes this person has a valid complaint, but as already posted the complaint is with the person the OP added to the account. The bank was correct in using right of offset. That being said I do beleive the bank could have been a bit more understanding and possible helped by either refunding some fees or stopping checks/automated debits from posting but they don't have to.

By the way, I am a customer service rep for another bank and you will find several posts by me trying to help people understand why the fees were charged and how to avoid them. But even when I do that I'm still accused of being just a cog in the "evil bank machine". If the CSRs didn't want to help people avoid the fees, we certainly wouldn't use our own time to post here.