Cornerstone Community Financial Credit Union How to Maximize Fees Through Automated Check Clearing Auburn Hills Michigan

Cornerstone Community Financial (CCF) processes checks, VISA/Debit card transactions and ATM withdraws in a unique manner slanted to maximize fees to the detriment of it's shareholders/customers.

It is wrong for anyone to purposely make transactions with the expectation that it is okay to be overdrawn on one's account. As a courtesy, many banks and credit unions will process the transaction and asses a fee to the customer for having Non-Sufficient Funds. This NSF fee is sometimes handled as an overdraft protection feature on the account.

It is extremely important to know your balance at all times. The consumer has the ultimate responsibility to manage their account(s). Customers and banks/CU's all make errors in account management from time to time. Banks/CU's are generally helpful to their customers in account management and will work with you if you contact them immediately when you notice a problem, whether it is your fault alone or an unintended error by the financial institution.

CCF handles NSF in a unique way that is not made known to it's shareholders. What CCF does is appear to process the transactions as they occur throughout the day. In actuality, CCF processes the transactions on a provisional basis: The transactions are actually processed after 12:01AM the next day and RE-ORDERED such that the largest transaction of the day is processed first, followed by the next lowest amount, followed by the next lowest amount and so on.

What this means to the consumer is that your transaction at McDonalds where you swipe your VISA/Debit card for that $3.00 Happy Meal you need to bring home may very well cost you $63.00!!

Why $53.00 you ask? Because the transaction was $3.00 but because CCF decided it was best for it's customers to have the largest transaction of the day processed first, you have now been assesed an NSF fee of $30.00 on the $3.00 transaction, PLUS a $30.00 NSF fee on the other transaction that CCF decided for you was more important to process for you as it was for a larger amount.

Here's another way to look at it: You have $150 in your account. You filled up your gas tank for $51.00 this morning (small car). You now have $99.00 in your account. On your way home you bought the Happy Meal for little Timmy for $3.00, which leaves you $96.00 in your account. The next day (which starts at 12:01AM remember) your $100 car payment to CCF is due and since you have signed up for automatic payment, it will be taken out of your account at the beginning of the day. You are now overdrawn..... and not by $3.00 or even $33.00. You are actually overdrawn by $64.00.

This is because CCF processed your transactions in this order:
Opening Balance: 150.00
CCF Car Loan: 100.00
New Balance: 50.00
Gas (fill-up): 51.00
New Balance: -1.00
NSF for Gas 30.00
New Balance: -31.00
Happy Meal: 3.00
New Balance: -34.00
NSF Happy Meal 30.00
New Balance: -64.00

Maybe you didn't have online access to your account this day or night. Maybe an ATM was not available for you to check your balance. Maybe your check register was in the drawer at work, or your home phone line was down or your cell phone network had technical problems... Any of these could keep you from knowing your current balance. But you the consumer expect to see it this way:

Opening Balance: 150.00
Gas (fill-up): 51.00
New Balance: 99.00
Happy Meal: 3.00
New Balance: 96.00
CCF Car Loan: 100.00
New Balance: -4.00
NSF for Car Loan 30.00
New Balance: -34.00

The net result is CCF (or your financial institution) has just made $30.00 for writing a few lines of code that re-orders transaction processing!!

If you're lucky, you will find out what your balance is the next morning, see that somehow you are overdrawn and make a deposit to cover the shortage. What you should do is go into the branch, make a deposit to cover the amount overdrawn that you have calculated (including the NSF). Then you will have to ask CCF to have mercy and waive the other $30.00 NSF that they insist is proper to charge you.

It is up to you the consumer to aggressively manage your account. Failure to do so will result in exorbitant fees being assessed to your account and a nice bonus to management for the profitable quarter due in part to the high rate of return from collected fees.

Do what's best for you and the enviroment, Go GREEN!.... Pay in CASH!!!

Follow this link to the online published CCF fee schedule:
http://www.ccfinancial.com/files/cornerstonetaft/191/file/Schedule%20of%20Fees.pdf

Consumer Advocate
Southeast Michigan, Michigan
U.S.A.