Woodforest National Bank They will take your money, one way or the other! ripoff Sherman Texas

Everyone knows that banks are out to make money. Every company in the world is or they wouldn't be around very long. The fact of the matter is that very few people take personal responsibility as a factor in these situations.

Do you keep a transaction register where you write down everything you've spent?
The answer is usually 'no' when I ask this. The bank doesn't know what checks you've written and sometimes merchants don't immediately charge your bank account (gas stations are notorious for this). Think about that before you say the teller/ATM gave you the wrong balance.

"These fees are outrageous and completely unexpected!"
If you overdraw, you're going to pay. The longer you take the worse it gets. When you don't pay your $300 car payment for 2 months do they ask for only $600? No, they ask for that plus penalties and interest. A bank works pretty much the same way. Plus you're provided a nice little packet of disclosures that describes how everything works. I personally know that Woodforest a page called "SCHEDULE OF FEES" which includes every single charge they have. The whole packet took me about 30 minutes to read in it's entirety. You signed legal documents and now you're responsible for them... read them!!

And just to respond to the "they only post an address" complaint, it's because you're running your card as debit (using your PIN). If you run it as credit it will give you the merchant's actual name.

It kills me on how many people "think" that their bank is "stealing" from them. I know this because of my job as a freelance debt advisor helping people out of debt.

First off Banks don't have time to read your disclosures with you and figure you will read the disclosures on your own time which tells you how to avoid getting stuck out there.

Second of all everybody I hear from says I don't have a lot of money for the bank to steal from me; if a bank was going to steal from some body why not steal from somebody that has 10,000+ in their account where the money could be slipped out a lot easier then with somebody that doesn't have that type of money.

Third of all since when can you borrow from somebody and not have to repay them interest or some sort of fee, and considering that most places that have checks returned to them charge 35 or 40 the bank is doing you a favor if they pay for an item if it is less then that.

Most people run into a problem of calling and checking the second they do something on their account and technology is fast but if a system updated every second the cost of running any business would be out there, imagine $6-7 for a gallon of gas, Interest rates in the 30's, it's just not practical to update that often considering the bandwidth to transmit that information. In my experience and this is using multiple accounts it takes anywhere from 3 minutes to 36 hours for 90% of my transactions to show up in the pending. The other 10% showed up after that.

As for the time it takes for an item to post I found out that ATM withdraws post first. Next are large ticket Items Like automatic debits out of your account like your mortgage, car payment and think about it those people really want their money so even if you give them a hand written check they process it electronically in some cases. Then my debit card transactions then Credit card transactions where most merchants fell as long as you didn't get declined at their store they are good. Some merchants wait until the end of the day to submit their card payments to their bank.

The bank really has no control over which debits process first. One day I had a $30 transaction post first then $235 then $34 and last of all a $2. Other days it was in order from highest to lowest.

So I say again Why would the bank steal from your account when you have nothing in it and not some one that is loaded? Not to mention that since the banks are governed by the federal government that as a bank to steal money from an account holder will grant you a fine of at least $1,000,000 fine and possibly the loss of the banking charter. Is it worth the sacrifice for them to steal a few hundred dollars even combined its still not worth it considering the bank makes more money by being in business.

That's it and Thank You to all the banks I visited and opened accounts at and that provide me with the great info. And the merchants I talked to about their end of the business. And a personal thank you to one of the branch managers at Woodforest National Bank for your valuable insight to how a bank works.

You're right Mike, that's exactly what they do. So long as I used checks only I had no problem. When I received the debit card and started using it was when the problems began.

Also, Woodforest Bank does not list the vender on the transactions, only an address. They can debit your account with the same transaction multiple times, weeks apart, and are counting on the debit card user not catch on to what they're doing. But I finally did catch it, and have moved my bank account.

I know that most banks are honest and trustworthy, but Woodforest National Bank is definately NOT one of them!
Fran

The banks don't do that! If yours does, then you need to change banks. You were correct up to the point that you said they take the $10.00 out of the $90.00, making it a balance of $80.00.

That is a paranoid, delusional statement. Yes, the banks are maximizing their fees, but they do it legally.

What happens it the 10.00 is put on hold, and deduction from your balance, even though the merchant hasn't collected the money as yet. Then, when the merchant batches their transactions, the money is moved from your pending column to your running transaction column. If the merchant fails to batch in time, that money is put back into your account, making the balance $100.00 again, and the transaction dissapears from your pending column. However, when the bank receives the batch, that $10.00 is deducted. This throws a lot of people off, because they don't keep a register, and they just look at the balance thinking that transaction already went through.

They "double-dip" some transactions.

Let's say you have $100 in your account. No pending transactions or fees or anything, just $100 sitting there waiting for you to spend.

You use your debit card to buy something for $10.

The merchant's card processing service puts a hold on $10 in your bank account.

Your current balance will still say you have $100 but your available balance will now say $90.

With me so far? Sure you are, because that's the part of the transaction that works the way it is supposed to.

The $10 transaction WON'T show in your online statement, but you'll see the difference in the available balance from the current balance and know it went through.

When the bank does process the transaction, here's where they do some creative accounting.

Your current balance will change to $90, THEN the transaction will be posted and subtracted from.....you guessed it....the current balance.

Leaving an account balance of not $90 but $80.

It is easy for banks to get away with this because of how many times so many of us use our debit cards. When confronted, the standard response will be "you must not have written down all of the charges you made with your card" and to fight this fraud you must keep EVERY receipt for debit card purchases and be prepared to audit your account constantly.