Wachovia Bank NO FEES = BIG FAT LIE. Ripoff Winchester Virginia

To Cory in San Antonio

I won't even wait until the end to reveal to you that I work for Wachovia, so we can get that out of the way. Anyway...

The account that you are speaking of is actually a Crown account and not the Free checking account. Or possibly it may be the Money Market account which also has a minimum balance requirement of $2500. Additionally there are actually several types of Crown accounts that can accomodate customers of many income levels. The Crown accounts range from minimum balances of $1,000 to $10,000 but that balance does not necessarily mean cash.

You can have an equity line, credit card, or another account linked to that Crown account to substitute having actual cash to maintain the balance. And if you can't tell from the balance requirements, these accounts are reserved for those customers that are beyond trying to beat a direct deposit posting. The Free accounts are non interest bearing accounts and they do not require a minimum balance. They have a $100 opening deposit (maybe even $0 if you work for many participating local/ nationwide companies). They ARE free until you mishandle your funds by not keeping accurate records of the money you are spending. Although I see customers come in almost on a daily basis inquiring about fees and such, I can tell you that close to all of them do not keep an accurate account of what they are spending.

Once and for all, you can not depend upon ATM's or Automated systems to track your funds. They are only as good as your combined record keeping and merchant processing practices. It is by no stretch of the imagination that the bank is responsible for checks, checkcard purchases, and automatic drafts that you perform on your own behalf and forget about until the next week.
Furthermore, there is no exact science as to what time at night a deposit is posted. It is only required that funds from a direct deposit are available on the business day that the check would normally be issued. That doesn't mean start spending at 12am. If there are no charges to be posted to the account before money is there, how could there ever be fees to be posted to the account for non sufficient funds? Simple suggestion is if it is not available when you are looking at your register (that you should be keeping) then you do NOT have it to spend. Banks are not for everyone. There are numerous companies that now offer check cashing debit cards.

This is an alternative to having an actual bank account if you are only using it for purchases, bill pay, etc. But, I promise you that you are hanging by a wing and a prayer if you refuse to keep accurate records of what is actually in your account and not what SHOULD be there in a couple days. If there is a bank error in any of this, or even a first time screw up with evidence of reasonable record keeping, it can be brought to a manager's attention and handled promptly.

I love it when people ask if we say this just because we work at the bank, not thinking that we also have our own funds to manage. It's quite a simple concept. You can not spend what you don't have. One last note, I am truly sorry that our original poster has had such unpleasant experiences with our customer service lines and branch employees. I can only say that they do not represent the entire company and if you have ever had a chance to get names, then they should definitely be reported so that they can be reprimanded.

We do pride ourselves on #1 customer service and if you feel that you have not been given such, you have every right and responsibility to report it to a higher manager. We realize that there are many choices out there and incidents like these only push us into the background.

I banked with BB&T for several years until I got smart and closed out with them. Please do a search on BB&T and read all the stuff about them. For some reason, banks love to run unauthorized fees up in accounts and then respond with "Well, do you keep a checkbook balance, are you spending more than what you have and blaming the bank, etc.". They do everything, but admit to wrongdoings.

Well, I took the advice of filing a complaint with the FDIC in my situation. Since then BB&T has closed my file out with a note "do not contact and do not attempt to collect". Also, don't bother to deal with the local offices of the bank. Always deal strictly with the main office and a head person.

I know one fact -- when you have a direct paycheck deposit in your account the funds are to be made available immediately. But, BB&T was holding my funds for 2-3 days.

There are a lot of things that banks don't disclose to the consumer. When you file a complaint with the FDIC, even if they don't find in your favor, they keep all complaints on file. And when the bank is investigated all the complaints are taken into consideration.

As I stated in my complaint with BB&T -- I didn't change the way I was banking, I JUST CHANGED BANKS. And, I don't have fees being run up in my new account. I do everything online and never keep a checkbook record.

Well i know a simple mistake will cause a domino effect in your checking account. But thats what the register is for. Its hard but a little time can avoid a lot of overdraft fees. Now you say that we process debit before credit no sorry we do the opposite credit befor debits. Now in situations like your were we pay things that post for thursday and then after that we process your auto credit for friday. So theres no way we can make your direct deposit available a day before its not possible. Thats why it may seem like we process debit before credit but we dont. Oh and 1 more thing we have 1# customers service . So remember this you attract more bees with honey be nice and everyone will be nice. any other questions write back.

In reply to "If you spend it before you get it," while I acknowledge that our account had a low balance, do you think we deserve a $105 "insufficient funds fee" when - prior to that fee - we had $106.36 in the account and the SUBSEQUENT transaction was the posting of the direct deposit? WHAT BOUNCED? According to our statement, NOTHING BOUNCED. We should have had $106.36 in the account when the direct deposit was supposed to be posted. WE DIDN'T FLOAT ANYTHING.

It also took Wachovia Bank NINE (9) days to send anything on paper about this "insufficient funds fee," thus causing a nasty s****.> I stand by my statement that Wachovia is opportunistic about their fees. Wachovia has been unable to give me a clear answer about this and I therefore filed this RipOff Report.

"Kiting" is transferring funds from one empty account to another empty account, ie. "representing fictitious financial transactions used temporarily to sustain credit or raise money". With check 21, kiting and the 2 or 3 day float is just about gone. Some checks "hit" the bank within hours. The OP doesn't say HOW the transactions were made at 10 pm Thur. You would think that if it happened once or twice, she'd get the hint but she states that it has happened THREE times.

How about conducting the transactions FRIDAY MORNING? There is no FREE BANKING out there. Got an ad in the mail the other day. To get their "free" checking, you had to maintain a MINIMUM BALANCE of AT LEAST $2000. If you maintain a minimum balance of $2000 and get 5.5% interest, which they don't pay interest, that's about $110 per year interest or $9.17 per month. IF YOU GO UNDER $2000 at any time, they hit you with a $10 service charge. The real funny part was the first 50 people who signed up for their "free" checking get a TV/radio. At the end of the year they issue you a 1099 for it for $75. On top of all this BS is that they'll nickel and dime you to death for every other service you require.

Can't speak to your State laws, but every State I've ever heard of has "check kiting" laws. What is kiting? Writing checks before there is money in the account. Why should Wachovia not refer yopu to the local DA? Yea, I don;t have that answer either.

If the transactions occured on Thursday and the direct deposit doesn't credit until Friday, you are spending money you don't have. Why do people have such a difficult time grasping that simple concept?

So the simple solution is, spend it after it gets credited to your account.