Wachovia Bank NSF Fees Are Insane Dothan Alabama

because courtesies end when they are abused. If you invite your friend over and he brings his dog who messes in your house, the friend will apologize and smooth everything over. You invite him the next week and the same thing happens and agian the next week and the next week and the next week. When do you stop inviting your friend over? When you feel your friend has abused the courtesy. When does the bank stop paying checks and return them unpaid? When the customer abuses the courtesy.
However we have only the OPs word that the checks were indeed honored every other time. The postcard for overdraft fees (check paid into the negative) and non sufficient fund fees (check returned unpaid) is the same. In one spot on the postcard it will say if the check was paid or returned. So all of those postcards (that he shouldn't have been reading without permission) might have been for returned checks and not checks paid into overdraft.
But again, the OPs complaint is with the roommate not the bank. I know you're against banks making a profit, but the only thing that's a ripoff here is the roommate.

Even though the OP knows the overdrafting habits of the roommate, for AT LEAST the past three months Wachovia has NEVER failed to honor the roommate's check before. If we logically carry this same pattern forward, for FIVE or TEN years into the future Wachovia ALWAYS honors the roommate's check each time. But then on the ONE MILLIONTH time when they don't, your argument is that the OP should have known better. Even though Wachovia has NEVER returned the roommate's check in over one million occurrences during a FIVE to TEN year period, still the OP should have known better than to try and deposit it again that next time. Huh?

Robert your post makes perfect sense with the fact that businesses go after the bounced check writer, not the bank. And of course the OP will have to do exactly that here with the roommate. Here's the problem I have with this entire SCAM. After the OP goes back to the roommate to recoup the damages, the roommate will be forced to pay for the original check and the two fees. After the dust settles and everything is finished, let's look at the final result for all parties involved:

1. The OP has not lost anything nor GAINED anything.
2. The roommate compensates for the original check, so no loss or gain. The roommate loses one NSF fee for the bounced check. No problem there. But the roommate also LOSES TWO ADDITIONAL OD fees to the OP.
3. Wachovia GAINES one NSF from the roommate, rightfully so. But Wachovia has also gained TWO ADDITIONAL OD fees.

Why honor the check each time in the past when, by coincidence, the OP probably had sufficient funds to cover it, even it was returned. THEN when the OP doesn't have sufficient funds to cover the returned check, JUST BY COINCIDENCE Wachovia decides to return it.......this time. Give me a break.

If the OP had cashed the check and then deposited the cash, the teller would have stopped the transaction as the cash wasn't available in the roommate's account. However, as the OP deposited the check, the teller has no reason to see if funds are available. Seems though that the OP should have been more concerned since he knows his roommate frequently overdrafts and chosen this route, but he didn't. Again the OPs complaint is with his roommate, not the bank.

Edgeman, you indicate the OP wrote checks on funds that were not available yet. Think about it. The OP's complaint is NOT that the bank HELD the funds. If they HAD placed a hold on the deposit and not made it immediately available, the OP most likely would have done what you suggest and not wrote checks against it. Or the OP would have a different gripe, the fact that they HELD the check deposit. But that's not the complaint, which confirms it probably wasn't held. So if Joe received a deposit receipt with no indication on the receipt of a hold and no indication from the teller about a hold, what other conclusion is he supposed to reach except the funds were immediately made available.

Joe did indeed know the past pattern of the roommate. But so did the bank. Wouldn't it be a logical question to ask why THE BANK would not hold the check deposit? Well, I think I made that perfectly clear earlier. The bank was able to reap three fees, two from Joe and one from the roommate? Had they HELD the check and not allowed Joe to use it, they would have received only one NSF from the roommate but NONE from Joe. If it sounds crazy for the bank to hold its OWN check, I agree. That takes me back to my original point. Why allow the deposit AT ALL when they HAVE THE ABILITY to see the roommate has insufficient funds. Would they DARE give a non-account holder CASH using the roommate's check, knowing there were not sufficient funds, never to see that non-account holder again as he makes off with the cash? I think not.

The OP states that they are a small business owner(they have a small business account), so here are some questions for you.

What do you do when a person has a check returned to your business for NSF? Do you just let it go and get mad at the bank for not paying it or do you go after the person? Do you assess a return check fee? What if they still don't pay? Do you just let it go? Or do you not even accept checks?

So do exactly what you would do in your business. Your Roommate wrote you a bad check. Instead of blaming the bank, blame your roommate. Make them pay you the check and all associated fees that it caused. If the person has a history of writing "hot" checks, make them pay you in cash(or have them get you a Money Order).

Don't expect any other bank to handle this situation any differently.

Is that the OP wrote checks based on those funds that were not available yet. If he had simply deposited the check and not written his own checks against it, then the reversal would not have resulted in overdraft fees.

To bolster Joe's complaint here, let's look at this a different way. What if Joe and his roomate used different banks? Let's say Joe used Compass and his roomate used Wachovia. Joe's roomate writes him the check. Instead of Joe depositing the check into his Compass account, he takes it to the Wachovia branch to CASH directly. Joe is a non-account holder at Wachovia so he'll be charged a fee for the service. No problem there, but here's the real problem. When the WACHOVIA REP proceeds to cash the check from the roomate's Wachovia account, they will IMMEDIATELY notice the roomate has INSUFFICIENT FUNDS to do so. They will give Joe the news and hand him back the check. No harm, no foul. Joe is only left with the task of collecting the funds for the bad check from his roomate. But Joe still has ALL of his money in his Compass account.

But in this case here, Joe and the roomate BOTH bank at Wachovia. Now PLEASE tell me why the SAME THING could not and was not done? You mean to tell me the SAME Wachovia rep WENT AHEAD and deposited the BAD CHECK into Joe's account, KNOWING there were insufficient funds from the roomate's account to do so? If you try and use the argument the rep did not know, please tell me why, when they CERTAINLY would have known before they gave a non-account holder CASH BACK out of the roomate's account. Instead of Joe only being left with the bad check to take back to his roomate and collect cash, NOW Joe is ALSO out of all the Overdraft fees that he WILL NOT be able to get back.

That's a HUGE difference and justification of the ripoff here.

no, your roommate does NOT have overdraft protection. Overdraft protection is provided by another account that has money to cover items that would put the checking account into the negative. When this happens the person gets a little postcard saying overdraft protection was used, you were charged $10 transfer fee. The cards you saw (and why are you reading your roommate's mail?) indictae that Wachovia provided a courtesy in paying the item that put the account negative and the $35 per item fee was charged. However, Wachovia is not obligated to pay any check that causes an overdraft. Sounds like the courtesy we had extended to your roommate had been abused to the point that it was no longer offered. You assumed that because other checks had been paid that the one he gave you would be too. However, you assumed incorrectly. I'm sorry to hear this happened to you, but as the last poster said 'it's you rommmate's fault'. Get the money for the check and the fees you were accessed from him since he caused them by giving you a bad check.

no, your roommate does NOT have overdraft protection. Overdraft protection is provided by another account that has money to cover items that would put the checking account into the negative. When this happens the person gets a little postcard saying overdraft protection was used, you were charged $10 transfer fee. The cards you saw (and why are you reading your roommate's mail?) indictae that Wachovia provided a courtesy in paying the item that put the account negative and the $35 per item fee was charged. However, Wachovia is not obligated to pay any check that causes an overdraft. Sounds like the courtesy we had extended to your roommate had been abused to the point that it was no longer offered. You assumed that because other checks had been paid that the one he gave you would be too. However, you assumed incorrectly. I'm sorry to hear this happened to you, but as the last poster said 'it's you rommmate's fault'. Get the money for the check and the fees you were accessed from him since he caused them by giving you a bad check.

no, your roommate does NOT have overdraft protection. Overdraft protection is provided by another account that has money to cover items that would put the checking account into the negative. When this happens the person gets a little postcard saying overdraft protection was used, you were charged $10 transfer fee. The cards you saw (and why are you reading your roommate's mail?) indictae that Wachovia provided a courtesy in paying the item that put the account negative and the $35 per item fee was charged. However, Wachovia is not obligated to pay any check that causes an overdraft. Sounds like the courtesy we had extended to your roommate had been abused to the point that it was no longer offered. You assumed that because other checks had been paid that the one he gave you would be too. However, you assumed incorrectly. I'm sorry to hear this happened to you, but as the last poster said 'it's you rommmate's fault'. Get the money for the check and the fees you were accessed from him since he caused them by giving you a bad check.

no, your roommate does NOT have overdraft protection. Overdraft protection is provided by another account that has money to cover items that would put the checking account into the negative. When this happens the person gets a little postcard saying overdraft protection was used, you were charged $10 transfer fee. The cards you saw (and why are you reading your roommate's mail?) indictae that Wachovia provided a courtesy in paying the item that put the account negative and the $35 per item fee was charged. However, Wachovia is not obligated to pay any check that causes an overdraft. Sounds like the courtesy we had extended to your roommate had been abused to the point that it was no longer offered. You assumed that because other checks had been paid that the one he gave you would be too. However, you assumed incorrectly. I'm sorry to hear this happened to you, but as the last poster said 'it's you rommmate's fault'. Get the money for the check and the fees you were accessed from him since he caused them by giving you a bad check.

"I do believe, saw a Wachovia to Wachovia checking transaction, and thus/therefore calculated that it should BOUNCE this check, seein' as how it would thus make ME BOUNCE some checks...how convenient, huh?"

There is no "convenience" to this transaction. Your roommate wrote a bad check to you that bounced. You had knowledge that the check was probably not good and deposited it anyway, and obviously wrote checks against money you didn't have. The idea of Wachovia watching and knowing that his bounced check would create fees on your account is ridiculous.

"He has OVERDRAFT PROTECTION, so they are supposed to honor any of them anyway!"
There are several kinds of overdraft protection that banks offer - all with limints. If the limit was reached, the check will be returned.
As in all the other postings, the fees are disclosed to you when you opened your account. Your account is your responsibility and you have to take the hit for how you manage your account. The vast majority of people don't pay monthly fees or overdraft fees because they manager their account properly. Don't blame the bank for your inability to manage your money.