Fifth Third Bank Fifth Third DOES rearrange ledgers. Louisville Kentucky

BAD BANK COMMENTS:

I can imagine that the banks do order transactions where possible to put things to their best advantage.  I do agree that the fees charged are way out of line.  I keep hearing how the banks do this "as a favor" to their customers.  When heard, this should send customers running screaming in the opposite direction.  There are no favors in these transactions.  Banks are obtaining funds on the discount (and for the past number of years at 0%).  This they advance to you for covering a shortfall (for whatever reason) and then charge fees that amount to 1000's of percent profit.  We have had usury laws in place for many years but the practice apparently does not fall under usury guidelines.  The bigger story is that you cannot legislate morality and ethics in business - lately large corporations have taken to ignoring business law wherever possible (read "not worth suing them over").  Thanks though for the tip on this scam.  I am shopping for a new bank (bye bye REGIONS) and have interviewed a number of banks in the past week.  I have decided to avoid the larger banks as they all seem to have ROR's about this habit and one lady at Suntrust did actually say that they were doing their customers a favor (see note above).   Here in my town I have found 2 small banks that have personal and business accounts, multiple branches, and yet have 0 ROR reports.  Good luck to me!

BAD BANK CUSTOMER COMMENTS:

When you are running paycheck to paycheck, lunch and a coffee at the mall for $9.00 or $12.00 (not sure which from your writings) is just not on the menu.  Pack a lunch, wait till you get home, etc.  You do need to look at your spending and make some tough but important changes and decide what is really important to you - especially when there are kids involved.  Natural Peanut Butter and Butter on Whole Grain Bread, Piece of Fruit, and Real Whole Bean Grind Coffee (all for about $1.00) at home in St. Petersburg before I pick up the kids at school today!

I know from experience that many people never believe you when you tell them about these practices.  They will think that YOU are the crook, or you are too stupid to balance your checkbook.  Banks will keep a transaction pending for as long as they can.  In my recent experience with my bank, it was about a week.  I checked my bank account everyday online for a week and every single day of that week as another transaction came in, they were reordered by amount.  Umm, yeah the various retailers did not call each other and to say they wanted to process my transactions in a specific order.  The most obvious explanation was that the bank was reordering them.  I didn't care because I had a positive balance and all transactions pending, outstanding, and posted were covered.  These transactions were also pending for about a week not 2 or 3 days.  Every store I shopped at that week decided to do their business at the end of the week instead of the end of the day, and they also decided to abandon their typical methods of business (sarcasm in case you couldn't tell).  Also, transactions that were previously covered all of a sudden there was no money to cover them, although I had made no more purchases.  So I would be basically be paying for several transactions 2x plus overdraft fees.  I have also had my bank accounts EMPTIED BY MY BANK on three different occasions with fees that are not listed anywhere and just happen to be the same exact amount in my accounts by the penny!  I am not taking anymore.  I will call the bank and ask them to correct their mess, then I will contact the FDIC and hope that they care about American citizens.  These people can steal from you and ruin your credit, I am done with giving anyone my social security number.  People will never believe you until it happens to them. 

Those charges did not "go through" Thursday morning... They may have been "Pending" Thurs morning, but they were not "Posted" to the account. The insurance charge was actually "Posted" NOT "Pending" BEFORE those debits so it was taken out 1st... thus overdrawing your account and causing you to be charged overdraft fees for the smaller debits that "Posted" AFTER the insurance payment did.

Also, debits are not "Posted" in the order they were swiped. It's up to the merchant where you used the card to close out those charges.. THEN they get "Posted" to your account. The bank has no control over how a merchant processes the closing of debits.

I am NOT a bank employee nor do I have any affiliation with any bank... I agree, the fee amounts are crazy and they suck...but unfortunately, they were agreed to when the account was opened.

Best of luck in the future.