Compass Bank thanks you just lost my business, you stink!! Ripoff Phoenix Arizona

Here is the summary of thier flaws as a bank.

1. They cnarge an NSF fee, with no warning and you have no way of fixing the situation if its going to s****.> 2. Those NSF fees make checks bounce that should have cleared. This not only is a problem for you but the merchant that you wrote the check to. Not only do you have the bank fee now, but the $25 fee that the merchant charges.

3. Thier absoulte refusal to fix the situation with the customer. They flat out refuse to refund even one fee. They try and make the customer look bad when it may have been something that was not clarified to the customer. After all, they seem to use like 3 different posting procedures.

Now, this is how they could fix this.

1. Notify you when there is going to be a fee, and allow you time to fix the problem.

2. Always put credits first in line for the days business, instead of last.

3. Be human, work with people instead of ripping them off.

I mean, how do they think they are going to stay in business if they just screw everyone??

Actually at a gas pump is only pre-authorized if you run it as a debit with a pin, if you run it as credit it does not pre-authorize and put a hold on a certain amount of money.

I acutally got a call from someone higher up in compass bank today, I have yet to return the call but their message was the same basic B.S. that even the low level C.S. rep gave me, blah blah blah, its not our mistake so we will not work with you blah blah blah

I don't care what they say, they still screwed me. I will pay my fees where they are due, but not a bunch of them just because they choose to re-arrange transactions to look worse than they really are.

I am 100% serious about taking this to the next level, if anyone else is serious about doing what we can as a group then more power to us!!

I am doing the same for wells fargo as well, I had a similar issues(but notably not nearly as badd ) but I have had overwhelming response to that particular method.

We still live in a democracy, we can still turn this in our favor, if the bank say loses 10,000 customers I think maybe it will wake them up(well maybe not but its nice to think)

Kyle,

Did you pay for that gas at the pump? Big mistake if you did.

When you put your card in the gas pump before you begin pumping, the pump verifies that your card is valid and puts a hold on an amount of money sufficient to pay for all the gas you might pump. It has no way of knowing that you intend to stop at $18. The pump may have put a hold on your account for $100 or more! Since you only had $18 in your account, you were overdrawn without even knowing it. When you finished pumping, the pump should have transmitted the fact that you only bought $18 and released the rest of the "hold." You probably will never see the amount that was put on hold, but that's probably where the overdraft came from. And you are right, this sucks!

Best advice is that when your account is low do not use the pay-at-the-pump option. Go inside and pay the cashier for your gas in advance. You can use your card as long as they enter only the amount you want to spend.

If you've paid any attention to what people like Paul and I and others have been trying to tell you about how to deal with these ripoff banks you'd be in better shape. The cards are all stacked in their favor and the only way to beat them is not to play their "game". They just rewrote a bunch of new laws under Check 21, in the bank's favor, aganist the consumer. Who do you think allowed the Fed to do so? The congress and the senate, paid for by the banks and credit unions. Don't play their game. Good luck.

Your description of Compass Bank as a used car dealer is right on the money. No pun intended. That's the "Compass Way". The EDP process you refer to was instituted to do just what it did to you - Generate more fee income for this excuse for a bank. You see, Compass has increased it's dividend to shareholders each quarter for years and it's on a special list because of that increase. They will do ANYTHING to remain on that list. They entice people with free ATMS and free checks for life, and then employee very gray accounting practices to use that fee income to greatly increase the bottom line. All that money you lost is probably going to help make someone's McMansion or Hummer payment or send a high school senior to a Carribean resort island.

Tell everyone you know NOT to step foot in the door of Compass Bank and Good Luck to you.

I think its about time that everyone be made aware of this banks practices, and i think its about time that we as the people take a stand to this B.S.

For everyone who has been charged hundreds even possibly thousands of dollars over bullshit like this should step up. These banks couldn't give a crap less about us and if they find an opportunity they capitolize on it and then take our hard earned money. We need to quit giving these institutions so much power. After all, without us, what would the bank be??? It wouldn't even exist. If McDonalds decided to start charging you $10 for cheeseburgers and all of their staff was rude to customers, they wouldn't be in business for long now would they?? So why should we let a bank do any different?? Plain and simple, if you do not keep a $100 cushion in your account at all times, you will get screwed even with perfect banking practices. They should not be allowed to do that, its not justified in any way, but to increase their bottom line. I am tired of just hearing people complain about it when no one steps up and really tries to make an impact, I am ready to do so, because you know what, I am beyond mad, I am furious. I should have had $150 in my pocket come tuesday but now I am well into the negative just because they are a bunch of robots with no human touch whatsoever. I refuse to deposit more of my hard earned money just to cover their fees that they stole from me.

If anyone wants to contact me regarding this matter e-mail me at lightspeedvr4@hotmail.com,

Its time we all take a stand, if we don't, they will continue to make up new policies to bend us over again and again. I bet if they lose a few thousand customers that will wake them up a bit. There just needs to be some stricter government regulation regarding these policies, instead of this 'used car lot' shady way of doing business. If uncle sam gets more involved with it then we all win!!

The posted balance going into the weekend was $62.

I am confused on this two, because my accounting does not show how it could be ne.


I talked with a Compass supervisor on the phone today, I asked them if they would refund the one $36 fee which caused it all, and they would not, I was nice and courteous and when that didn't work I started telling them how much bad press they were going to get if they didn't cooperate. I have just begun to fight this.


Heres another thing all you compass bank people may want to know.

EPD, or Effective Date Posting, yet another trick you may get caught by.

What this means, is if you write a check on Monday, and make a cash deposit on tuesday to cover that check(maybe you wrote it to pay a bill or rent or soemthing), they look at the date that is stamped on the check at the federal reserve, this is before it even hits your bank. so that means even if there is cash in your account when it actually hits the bank, but the date stamped on the check does not reflect enoguh money in your account, they will charge you an overdraft fee, even though you never technically overdrafted the account.

I/E, you pay your rent, they deposit the check that night in their bank and their bank sends it out the fed reserve. The next day you make a cash deposit with enough to cover the check, the check doesn't actually hit your bank account until 3 days later, your accounting shows there was cash in there to cover the check before it posted, but you still get a fee.

Yet another thing NO other bank does to my knowledge.

Yet another fee charging scheme, which also contradicts their funds availability disclosure which states that any deposit made will be available for any checks posted to the account on the same day. Who the hell is going to stand for such a screwed up bank?? They are a bunch of morons if they think people are going to put up with their B.S.

Also, they reserve the right to hold any checks deposited up to 14 days before it hits your account. You could get a paycheck, deposit it and even though it cleared the employers bank days ago it does not reflect in your balance, nice huh.

Screw them, with practices like these compass will not last long.

I am sorry to hear what has happened to you. I am still trying to figure out what happened, but your summary is still a bit confusing.

Perhaps if you told us what your starting bank balance was going into the weekend. Also, when you summarize what your bank statement said on monday, doesn't it show the dates the items were paid by the bank?

Your statement summary doesn't show when your $60 dollar deposit posted.

What's the 36 dollar overdraft item fee (the second item listed) for? Is that for the $18 purchase below it?

I was just trying to follow this chronologically but I couldn't.

I hope you can resolve this with your bank. Those are some steep charges you took.

I do my electronic deposits from paypal.

I initiate it with paypal, it shows as Pending for 1 business day, on the 3rd day it is available in the account, it does not take any more time to clear than that.

The deposit in question was not a paypal deposit, but a cash deposit on friday made at a branch location. I think that I made myself clear that no purchases beyond what was in my account were made on Friday or Saturday,

with the exception of some checks which were written Saturday and would not post to the account until monday night at the earliest, at which time the paypal deposit of $150 would be 'Posted'

The paypal deposit, which I started on Thursday eve, in the amount of $150, was made available on Monday, and was posted in the 'Posted balance'. I am very very cautious of timelines regarding deposits.

In this situation, I did nothing wrong, and I am now taken avantage of.

They even state in their policies, that any deposits made, are available for any checks that post that day. Well, this is not true, because they always show deposits as the last in line, yet another lie from Compass bank.

I would really like to see someone from the bank come here and argue with me on this, it should be good for some exposure on the difference of what they tell you and what they really do.

On friday, the deposit was made in the form of CASH, it was shown in my POSTED balance on Saturday, before the $40 and before the $18. It was not a check deposit, or even an electronic deposit. Now, take that in consideration before you start trying to make me look like I am the one that made the mistake here.

My accounting was perfect, I had written down every transaction over the weekend and I knew exactly where I should be at.

They induced one overdraft fee which then caused 3 more. How they think they can get away with such accounting practices, I do not know. Just heed this warning, if you decide to bank with them and are not the type of person who keeps a nice $1k cushion in the account at all times. If you run it close, they will find a way to screw you, you can count on that.

The reason being is debit card activity. Purchases were made on Thursday, which funds were in the account to cover. There was no more activity on the card until Saturday, when funds were shown as POSTED from the cash deposit made friday.

Monday being 9/12, the first in line was the ATM withdrawl of $40, then next was the $36 fee, then the $18 gas purchase which put me in the negative for 3 more transactions. The transactions from thursday were 2 of the 3 transactions. The last fee inducing transaction was their fee for $2 for using a non Compass ATM.

You see the problem here?? First of all, the account should have never seen a negative balance in the first place, secondly, the 2 transactions that were made on Thursday were made to look like they were made on Monday AFTER the $36 fee. Then, of course the electronic depost for $150 shows last(they are the only bank I know of to run debits before credits as daily business)

Now, do you see how they got away with this?? They found a spot, they could insert a $36 fee, which then caused more $36 fees, and now by the end of the day, they got $144 of my money, and now probably even more because I had an additional $135 worth of checks out there.

I did nothing wrong, I never spent any money before it was deposited and it was shown as POSTED.


Just a brief summary here is exactly what happened-

Thusday - 2 purchases via debit card, one for $8.50, one for $10, end of day balance of $2.50(with these 2 transactions shown)

Friday- Deposit made of $60 cash

Saturday- 2 purchases, 1 for $40, one for $18

Statement as shown monday 9/12

1- $41.50 atm withdrawl from saturday
2- $36 overdraft fee (here i become approx $2 avail)
3- $18 purhace for gas from saturday -$16
4- $10 purshase from thursday -$26
5- $8.50 purchase from thursday -$34.50
6 $2.00 atm fee -$36.50
7- $150 credit electronic deposit $113.50

Now pending -
3 x $36 overdraft fees

Leaves a balance of $4.50 to pay what checks are out. Thats about $135 of ehecks, which there was enough to cover according to my bookkeeping
THe customer service REP told me that the $18 gas purchase is the one that induced the fee. Now look at the above timeline, any of you who know anyting about accounting, well even simple math you tell me how that is possible.

plus I have 4 checks that are out now, that were written Saturday, when my accounting was perfect right??

Current balance is now approx -$200, it should be a positive $56 according to my accounting, but now they have charged me $144 in fees, and I am guessing they will try to hit me with more tomorrow since I am sure some of the saturday checks came in tonight, I am guessing they will send back the checks, and leave me with a negative balance of about $200-$250, over a single overdraft fee, that according to my record keeping should not be there. Which would leave me out a total of about $350 of my hard earned money, all over one single fee that should not even be there.

Customer service is no help, they say they will have a 'Manager' call me. But I am guessing that they will not do squat, and act like I did soemthing wrong and I should have to pay whatever they decide to charge me. This is a scam people, any way you look at it. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could think otherwise. I will keep harassing them until they agree to remove that one fee and the catasrophe it caused, I do not care if I have to stand in front of their door with a sign, I will get this resolved or they will get more bad press than they have ever seen. I will go so far as to contact the local media as well as the local government.

Now, I would like to see someone take the banks side given the above information is correct.

You have screwed yourself and it's not the bank's fault you were overdrawn. You put money in to cover some weekend purchases. First mistake. With ANY kind of bank transfer the funds won't be available for 3-5 business days. Technically you were overdrawn. You then electronically transferred funds in on Monday. Those funds won't be available until the following Monday (at the latest). Five day thing again. ALL banks do this. It's also not too wise to let your bank account get that low in the first place. Finally, there isn't a lawyer in the USA that will take this case. There isn't anything to recover.