M&T Bank Non-sufficient funds being taken for no reason and deposit amounts that were never made Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania

I am tired of being ripped off by non-sufficient fund fees! My g/f and I have a checking account together and there are non-sufficient fund fees coming off left and right. They are also showing deposits in amounts that were never made for that much. For instance..1-26-09; Our account was showing a negative balance of $264. (no other transactions were done due to the fact that we knew the account was in the negative) 1-27-09; we were showing a balance of $-477.55.This is the same day that her direct deposit of $396.31 was put into the account.

The bank statement is showing a deposit of $555.78 (which was not the deposit amount of the check)and a balance of $78.23. My g/f pulled out $20.00 cash using her debit card. She also bought a bag of dog food for around $20.00 using the debit card. Now keep in mind that the balance before these two transactions was $78.23. Now the bank is showing a negative balance of $39.22.

How is this possible? They said we were $2.22 over drawn and a non-sufficent fund fee of $37.00 was added for a total a balance of -$39.22. This is just one instance. M&T has done this for months now and have we have paid over $3000.00 in non-sufficent fund fees! I have called the bank numerous times and so has my g/f and have gotten no results other that we need to watch what we spend.

January 2 2009-Our account was showing a balance of $91.76. There are 4 trasactions showing on our statement. The first is for $19.11. This would leave a balance of $72.65. The second was a transaction of $19.50. This would leave a balance of $53.15. The third transaction was $21.49. This would leave a balance of $31.66. Now the last transaction WOULD over draw our account.

It was a transaction for $147.50 (The misterious car insurance withdraw) This would leave me with a total balance of negative $115.84. NOT $138.10! They charged us $148.00 in non-sufficient fund fees. Now before the first three trasactions there was $91.76 yet they charged us non-sufficent fund fees for them like we were in the negative when we were clearly not.

M&T has told us that the transactions are deducted from your account in the order they were spent. The only way they could have charged us for so many fees is if they moved the order around. In other words if they took the $147.50 first and then deducted the other three transactions. This would cause the $148.00 in non-sufficient fund fees. But the statement clearly shows that this was not done this way.

This all started about a year after we opened the account. We opened the account and deposited money here and there but never spent it unless we needed it. We stopped using the account for a long time. We went to the drive through one day figuring to cash a check and deposit some money. The teller said that the account was in the negative.

I ask how this was possible since we did not use the account for a long time and we never spent any of the money in the account. She went to get the bank manager and he said that because we didn't use the account for a while it was automaticaly switched to a different type of account. This type of account apparently takes money out if you do not use it for a certain amount of time.

I ask who authorized this change on our account because neither her of I ever signed any papers authorizing this change. The bank manager said it was automatic and that we (my g/f and I) did not have to sign or authorize anything. He even said that they did us a favor by switching over to this type of account. How this was a help has yet to be seen!

We recently contacted M&T bank and ask about the non-sufficent fund fees and the gentelman on the phone said that he could send us a form that we would have to fill out and take to our branch and that this would cut the fees down when we over draw our account. I don't understand this! How do you switch an account without authorization and then have you fill out a form to cut down the cost of overdraft fees?

We are working on closing that account now. Apparently we have to wait until they make sure that all the transactions out there are in before we can close it. How can there be any transaction out there when they are saying we are in the hole! I don't want to pay the amount in the negative due to the fact that we did not spend the money that WAS there.

Also, the bank statements we receive every month do not show any transactions between 12-30-08 (which there was a direct deposit that day) and 1-2-09. Yet when we called the 800# they said nothing about the deposit but said we were in the negative. There are no records of any transactions between those times other than charges to our account and insufficent fund fees for transactions we have NO record of.

My car insurance is set up to automaticly withdraw from this account. For some reason M&T paid my insurance twice this month. I called my car insurance company and ask why they charged us twice in one month. The said they didn't. They said they requested a payment January 16th and that it would take no more than ten days to get the payment. A payment of $147.50 was suppose to be taken out December 30th (The day of the direct deposit that they have no record of) The payment was never sent to my car insurance company until January 2nd.

We almost lost our car unsurance! Another payment was requested on January 16th and was never sent until the 26th of January. Again we almost lost our car insurance.Then we called M&T and ask them why they sent two payments to my car insurance company for the month of January. They said it was because the car insurance company requested them. Again, we called the auto insurance company. They sent us an email with all payment request to our bank account and they DO NOT show two for the month of January!

We were told by M&T one time that once your account reaches the negative $300 mark it is locked and you can make no further transactions out of it. So how did we end up almost $500 in the hole? We did not spend the money and there was even a deposit that dissapeared on their paperwork. Now my question is if the account is locked and no further transactions can be withdrawn, How do they take their money out of it? This is because the bank can screw you however they like.

We are tired of our money dissapearing. We have two kids and are trying to support a family. They are making this almost impossible to do. We cant buy groceries, pay bills, or do anything with no money. I'm sure this is not the only bank that does this to people. It seems that the banks in this country can do whatever they like and get away with it. Who mandates what they can and can't do? Are there laws against what they do to people and nobody knows?

I have read many reports about M&T on www.ripoffreport.com that sound like they have had the same problem. So why is this still happening to people. Why are the banks getting away with stealing peoples money. If I go out and steal someones money I go to prison. Why don't they? It seem that while everyone using banks is getting pore the fat cats at the top of the bank boards are getting pocket so fat they can't walk. Now I know why my grandparents bank was an old mattress!

WHAT CAN WE DO!?

Adam
Liverpool, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.