National City Bank - PNC Bank Unfair Charges and Won't Refund Them, Internet

What I don't understand is why you don't file a dispute for the charge from Best Buy and the fees assessed?  As much as the error was not on your end, it was also not on the banks end; with that PNC is not responsible to reverse the fees.  The fault is at Best Buy's end.  Either they can refund you the charge and the fees or you dispute it with the bank as canceled/revoke authorization.  I'm surprise you were not given this option.

Also, as soon as a transaction is pending on your account, it is affecting you available balance to pay items that are posting that day.  For example, you begin the today (9/17) with $200 in your account, excluding any pending credits or debits (called your ledger balance).  The total amount of transactions pending on your account is $50; (transaction that are authorize, but not posting for this today business) .  The total amount  available to pay posting transactions this same business day is $150.  Posting transactions on 9/17  include 1 transaction for $100, 7 transaction for $10.  The total amount posting that day is now $170.  You account is -$20.

You will receive 2 overdraft fees for 2 of those $10 transactions (posting occurs largest item to smallest item).  The $50 transactions pending may not post for another 3-5 days, but it effects your account balance the business day the bank receives it.  If a deposit of $20 was made on 9/17, it would have protected the account from fees. But posting in the negative available balance causes overdraft fees. 

The confusing part though is if you look at your online banking the morning of 9/18 it will state your ledger balance is +$30 while your available balance is -$20.  Why is that you say?  Remember, the ledger balance is your beginning balance of the day, excluding pending transactions; the $50 transaction is still pending.  When you look at your account mid-day on 9/18, you will then see the 2 ovd fees bring your balance to $-92 (36x2 +20).  Overdraft and NSF fees are assessed the next business day after your account overdraws, around 3pm EST. 

I know it sounds difficult, but the main thing is just making sure that funds are available for all your transactions. Even if transactions fall off your account, because you know you have deducted it from your available running balance, it doesn't matter when they put it through.  Only way to avoid fees.  And if there is a transaction you don't recognize or did not authorize, let us know.  We can dispute it.

But you must also know that the responsibility of the account is the account holder's.

I don't know why I'm even asking, because I already know the answer, but why didn't you bother putting overdraft protection on your account for these types of situations?

When using your Visa Check card for a reoccurring charge such as a subscription, the company receives an authorization code the first time it charges the fee and from then on the same code is reused.  Due to the fact that this is a Visa purchase we can not deny a charge that has an authorization code.  Therefore the bank would have to pay the item. 

Where I do agree with this customer is that the bank should have filed a dispute once the charge posted to the account and this could have resolved both the amount and any fees associated with it.

As to why the charges disappear, the holds only remain on the account for 3 days which is usually sufficient time for the merchant to submit for payment (Now it is 5 days with the changeover to PNC).  After the 3 days the pending hold is removed, but the merchant can still submit the payment at a later date.

I do keep track of everything I spend. That is not the issue. I knew ahead of time canceled the service before it should have even posted to my account.

National City could have stopped it before it went this far. They could have denied the charge.

I contacted Best Buy. They of course have already put in to refund the $42.79. But they agree with me ... why did National City let the charge go through.

So my complaint is that I should not have gotten 3 overdraft fees. I took steps to try and stop this. I even contacted National City when it was pending and after it posted.

I really got no answers to any of my questions.

So no its not my fault this happened. I did know how much was in my account. I canceled the service. The rest is not my fault.

Why are you not going after Best Buy for the fees that THEY caused.  After all you CANCELLED the debit and have a confirmation and they did it anyways.  If BEST BUY didn't submit the debit you would not have overdrawn(or at least that is what you are inferring).

Yes in the past banks would refund fees in the cases of merchant errors.  However, for every true merchant error there were people who were just gaming the system trying to get fees reversed that were not errors.  So as a result the banks have gone to the stance that unless they caused the error they will not refund any fees.  However, in this case it appears that at some point they may even would have been willing to still refund the fees if you can provide a letter from Best Buy stating they messed up.  The reason they will not accept the e-mail is because there is no way that they can guarantee that the debit that hapened relates to the e-mail.  For all they know you could have had another debit that actually was cancelled and they didn't attempt to debit the other one.  Is this inconvenient yes..and perhaps Best Buy should also compensate you for this inconvenience as well.

Now, just another comment is that you appear to be relying on on-line banking to manage your account.  Because of the nature of how transactions are processed on-line banking was never meant to replace an actual written register.  It is not uncommon for transactions to "disappear" and then "reappear", does that happen all of the time..no, but it can happen.  This is just the nature of holds and how transactions are processed and not some huge conspiracy.  So when you make a transaction you need to write it down as that will be the most accurate way to keep track of your transactions.

in your own words in this report  you stated " So if I check my account on the phone it looks like I have more in my account than I actually do".........