U.S. Bank Overdraft charges gone wild! Ballwin, Missouri

My college-aged daughter has overdrawn her US Bank account on several occasions, mostly due to her own sloppy bookkeeping. But she has become much more vigilant in keeping her account balance in the positive. A friend of my daughter recently talked her into an investment plan in which $40 would be taken from my daughter's checking account each month. While I believe investing is a great habit for her to begin, she also has no real consistent income at this point since her work is limited to 15 hours of work study during the school year. As a result, my daughter filled out paperwork to get out of the investment plan. Unfortunately, unknown to my daughter, the investment firm again took $40 from her US Bank account earlier this month (June 2010). This caused her to overdraw her account by using her Debit Card. Eventually, due to the US Bank $35 fees and $8 daily charge, my daughter's account ended up $112 in the negative.

I went into the bank with her on Saturday, June 5, to make sure her account was placed in the positive so she would avoid additional charges. Having dealt with US Bank in the past, I figured there was no point contesting the charges -- even though the investment firm has noted its mistake and has agreed to return the original $40 to my daughter's account. I simply wanted to pay the fees to bring her out of the negative, again, to avert further charges. My daughter deposited her $100 check and I paid an additional $20, at which point the bank confirmed she was $8 in the positive. I even asked the branch manager, specifically, if she was going to incur any further charges. (My daughter had not used her card since June 2, and has not used it since, nor has she had any outstanding checks.) I was assured by the branch manager she would have no additional charges. On Monday, US Bank hit her with another $35 overdraft charge for the June 2 debit card use (which was less than $3 purchase at Taco Bell, by the way) and added $8 daily charges as well. We received notification of this by mail on Saturday.

Today, June 13, we returned to the same US Bank branch (it's located inside a grocery store and actually has Sunday hours) to find out how she could have overdrawn her account -- now to the tune of $49 -- given the fact she had made no transactions. The explanation was that even though her account was in good standing on June 5, she was being charged now for the fact she wasn't in good standing on Jun e 2. When I asked why I wasn't told about this the prior week so I could cover my daughter's account, allowing her to avoid the new daily overdraft charges, I was told nothing could be done. So I paid the $49 to bring my daughter's account again out of the negative. Can't wait to see what charges US Bank finds to stick her with tomorrow ... probably the "your mean dad yelled out our assistant manager" fee.

This is at least the fifth situation I've had with US Bank in which one employee tells me one thing and another employee later tells me they either have no record of such conversation or that the prior employee had made a mistake. This is a company that has an incredible case of selective memory. Today, the phone representative I contacted when I got home refused to send me written me written confirmation of our conversation.