Huntington Bank Wrongful NSF Charges Practics ripoff Grand Rapids Michigan

I think most people that post in favor of the bank charging a rediculous amount of money for mostly honest mistakes probably have a well linned account and never worry about 150.00 being taken from a budget. Huntington does not pay the highest amounts first now they pay the transactions that will generate the most NSF fees, pulling posted transactions out and then into pending transactions, paying thier robbery like fees first and whatever is left paying debits. I have screenshots of my account of this happening. I went in an discussed the issue with the personnal banker and he did what he could to silence me and keep me away from the lobby. I told them that huntington tightened thier policies to recieve more money from NSF and they will only return 1 a year for no matter what reason. The bankers get reramanded for returning others and they have to fill out this big form explaining that the bank was a direct fault. My last mishap should of resulting in 1 NSF but since huntington fees are more important than my payees they chargd me two. It is unfair and unreasonable. People are not trying to criminally rip the banks off they are trying to make ends meet on a tight budget. I was approved and signed all the paperwork for overdraft but still I havnt recieved verification. They must see a higher profit in me than they would someone else. Good Luck to everyone and make sure those hand written bank ledgers are properly filled out and balanced daily!!!

I am disgusted with the way some people on here take ZERO responsibility for their actions. Step back and take a long hard look at what you are saying.

We all know banks exist to make money. So do you really think a bank is going restructure their fees to accommodate you because you dont' think it's fair they charge you $35 (or more) when you spend more money than you have in your account??? Stop living in a dream world! The whole point of the fee is a penalty for spending money you DON'T have. This is NOT rocket science people.

Just in case you still don't get it:
Keep a register, balance your register from your statement, and don't spend it if you don't have it

There it is, the top secret, confidential way to avoid paying NSF's is out!

YOU HAVE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS.

Banks are NOT here to be responsible for you. You have to be diligent about keeping an accurate register. It literally makes ZERO difference what order items post. If you don't spend more than what is in your account you will NEVER be hit with NSF's.

~Charles

Whenever you use your debit card to access funds, the funds are temporarily deducted from your available balance. The merchant then has to provide the bank proof of purchase if you will in the form of an authorization number or a signed receipt, whichever is appropriate for the situation. The bank can't pay items until the merchant submits said receipt or auth code for verification, then causing your account to overdraw because days can pass before this happens. You can continue to use the funds placed on hold for these pending transactions because they're not actual transactions until the proof of purchase has been submitted. In essence, it's the same as writing a check where the bank isn't notified until the check is presented to your account for processing. In the mean time you feel that you're balance is something thats its actually not because you've already intended those funds to be spent elsewhere. It seems as if you need to either a) keep records of your transactions and balance your check book, or b) stop using your debit card. It's not your banks fault that you overspend whats in the account.

Please read my report titled "Huntington Banks Overdraft Fee(s) for On Line Bill Payment posted to wrong date. Huntington West Virginia"

I live in Huntington West Virginia and the fees here are $38.50 per transaction. My fee charges was a result of an on line bill payment posting to the wrong day. It posted one day before my payday. The other three that I posted went correctly. I am still unsure if it was my error or the web page. But the result was 6 overdrafts that would not have occurred if the bill pay transactions in there system would have been declined due to insufficient funds. The other transactions would then have had sufficient funds to process and not fees would have resulted.

As a current Huntington customer, I am disgusted by their "high to low" practice of clearing transactions. My suggestion is that they be cleared by date of transaction. For instance, if I make a purchase today it may not "post" to my account for 5-7 days. It will be in the pending status but not posted to the account. Say I have $300 in the bank and 10 transactions pending for $150 dollars and a check hits my account for $300. Currently, if if the check is dated after the dates on the pending transactions, it will clear first. Then I'll get hit with 10 NSF fees for $375.00 for $150 worth of transactions. That's ridiculous and done soley for the purpose of generating revenue for the bank. Now, the bank will say they do this for your benefit. HA! Hit me with 1 NSF and return the $300 check and clear the other 10 items if you really have my best interest at heart.

The problem here is overdrawing the account - plain and simple. Virtually every bank posts transactions in order of largest to smallest and YES they do it to maximize their fees so they can provide maximum value to their shareholders. Your methodology is only fair to YOU and since the account is not setup on YOUR terms, your proposal cannot be seriously taken. The Terms and Conditions are established by the bank, you agreed to live by those terms, and they allow the bank to post in any order they wish - and they choose largest to smallest.

The OD penalty of $37.50 is meant to be punitive - so you don't OD your account. Even if you decide to close your account there, you'll find all banks do this. I would try a credit union instead - they may not post in that manner and you'll find shareholders of a credit union to be the account holders. You generally have no recourse - as someone already said, courts have given all banks the right to charge these fees, provided they are adequately disclosed in the account T&C's you signed with the bank when the account was opened.

I would also stop using the debit card in the manner you're using it. The only thing that stupid thing does is give the bank more in fees when you overdraw. Stick to using cash and checks if you don't have a credit card. If you keep a written register and stop using an ATM or an online system to track your balances, along with the shredding the debit card, you will stop OD and keep more of your money. If you do as I would recommend, you would have had $0 OD fees, because you would not have spent the additional $78, unless you went out of your way to OD your account, and then you have to live with the penalty.


Darkpower, the problem with your post is that it assumes the bank will never offer anything like overdraft protection. In the situation you describe, the bank will decline a transaction when the account holder does not have overdraft protection of any kind. That is a disservice both to account holders and to merchants who then spend time with people ill-equipped to buy anything. Moreover, customers do not like it when they're cards are declined for any reason; it leads to bad feeling, ill-will, embarassment, and humiliation - even if it is a legit decline. If people went back to checks and cash only, they would not suffer such.

These other two people who responded (especially Aafes, who has apparently been so loyal to Huntington that he defends them here any time he can) have valid points. That is, IF the filer actually WROTE checks that he knew would bounce.

HOWEVER, different logic would hold true for credit and debit cards, because these work somewhat differently. For one, normally, if a debit card shows insufficient funds in an account for a transaction, the card SHOULD be declined. Likewise, for bill paying and online transactions, such as bills for online services and auto bill pay, you really do not have much of a choice of WHEN these will be charged.

Herein lies the REAL issue. What this guy is saying is that any charge you make should appear chronologically. I'm assuming that he is talking about a debit card, mainly (since so many people use debit cards instead of writing checks anymore because you never know when a check will go through, while you know a debit card will immediately, or should anyway, deduct the money from the account).

So, let's take the issue I'm now having with my account with them. I at the time had around $8 in my account. Now, there were a few purchases I made to MAKE it $8 for a particular reason: There is an online charge that comes out monthly of at least $14. Now, if the funds would not be in the bank at that time that this online service (don't worry, the service is fully legal, it's just an MMORPG I play alot), it would decline the card and kick me off of the game until I could pay up the funds. Now, this transaction normally occurs around the 1st or 2nd of every month, regardless of the time of year (usually the 2nd). Here, my intention was to intentionally get it so the card would be declined to them so I could pay off the game the next pay and thus get things back on track. The balance of $8 had occurred much prior (like, a few days prior) to the billing process for this game was ever scheduled to even begin.

HOWEVER, the bank had decided that when the transaction took place (which was $16 they needed), to PAY THEM ANYWAY!! (Unsure HOW that happened to begin with, I'm currently going to try to dispute how THAT happened). This is LONG after the $8 balance was shown. Now, on top of that, and this is where this guy's claim can have meaning on top of all the other stuff that happened, the transactions that I made to GET it so the card would (and should've) been declined by the game (which would've deducted for a previous month anyway) were posted as a pending transaction behind the one for the game. Why? Aside from the fact that Huntington had decided to let a transaction go through that never should have been allowed to go through, then it decides to post these other things AFTER the game deduction.

Now, here's where things get REALLY weird, and I apologize if this will be confusing. Just keep in mind that the game transaction should've never been approved to begin with, but let's assume that somehow this game thing was allowed to go through and I didn't notice something along the way. The two prior deductions that I had made prior to the game taking stuff out that were to be posted as cleared after the game had then been cleared, and according to Huntington, I overdrew my account and was assessed TWO NSF fees. Fees for WHAT, exactly? The game transaction that would've overdrew my account to begin with, according to Huntington, was still pending. Thus, these other two transactions should've been allowed to clear regardless without a fee. Also, I have direct deposit now, and that was to come in sometime Thursday or Friday. At that point, the other transactions were still pending.

TODAY, the day I was to have the funds, and during an overnight in which the money was to be deposited into the account, Huntington decides to CLEAR THE GAME TRANSACTION AND ANOTHER TRANSACTION I MADE PRIOR TO THE GAME TRANSACTION'S BILLING CYCLE!! This is at the EXACT same time that the deposit was posted.

Now I'm going to be hit with FOUR NSF fees that I should've never been charged to begin with. The deposit, in the pending transactions, is BEHIND the NSF fee, for some weird reason (if the deposit came in at the same time as the other charges were to be posted as completed...yeah, that's real confusing).

Okay, I digressed a little, but I think you see that it's not all just writing a fraudulent check. You have to consider the whole check card thing and all these services that may decide to try as hard as they can to overdraw you anyway from it. And there is really nothing you can do to stop them (and believe me, I have sent a investigate transaction message to Huntington about that game transaction that never should've been approved, and I will be calling them, too. So I'm really going to be on them about this).

Please consider EVERYTHING before you just assume this guy is just frauding banks.

Basically, you wrote checks for funds you did not have, whether by mistake or intentionally, it is not the issue here.

The bank, like almost every bank in the country posts from high to low. Banks began this practice a little over a decade ago, likely with the intent of maximizing fee income (they will not publicly admit this).

The cookie cutter explanation they will give you is that they feel it important for their customers as it ensures critical payments like rent or auto payments are made from funds available. They will say they practice this to help their customer's avoid embarrassment. There may be some truth to this, or maybe not.

The banks were very thorough before starting this practice, even getting favorable opinions from the Comptroller of the Currency. They justified the practice by providing references to state laws and by providing information on habitual NSF check writing customers that "shopped" for banks with more favorable "low to high" posting orders policies.

Basically a few deadbeats caused the overall change.

What they are doing is legal, perhaps unethical, but it is legal.

Posting order is determined by banks and have been declared legal by the court system. Banks post debits largest to smallest (see the millions of posts here on the topic).

however, you readily admit you committed theft by deception and fraud by knowingly writing a bad check, yet you blame the bank