04.28.08
1:31 a.m.
Fuck US Bank
Earlier this month I made a few poor money decisions and I ended up being short for two bills that I completely forgot were being debited. Unfortunately, my bank, US Bank, is the shittiest bank on the planet. As you can see from the following excerpt from my account, the total for the original overdrafts was $24.17 more than I had in my account.Now, I understand that there will be overdraft fees and that this was my fault completely. This is how banks stay in business and I am responsible to pay any fees associated with my mistake. However, I have been a customer of this bank for almost 10 years, and I will admit I have been overdrawn a few times before, but have ALWAYS paid the fees. This time was different and I knew I wouldn't be able to pay them until the end of the month. I called the bank to ask for help, or a stay of execution if you will. No such luck, in fact, Sholanda was a complete cunt to me. As I do in stressful situations, I ignored it for awhile.
US Bank's policy is to kick you while you're down, so for every day your account is in the negative (from previous experience I know that even if it was fees that put you in the negative this still applies) they charge you $8.00.
What I didn't know was that for every week your account stays negative, they charge you an additional $35.00 just for the fuck of it.
I contact the bank on several occasions, through email, by phone, and in person, hoping I would get a sympathetic person that would somehow let me work out a plan so that the $8.00 fee would stop accruing. No such luck. US Bank employees are cunts. All of them.
There was nothing I could do about the situation, I had no one who I could borrow the money from, so I was resigned to the fact that I'd have to pay whatever they charged me. Then, on Friday, I got a letter stating that my account was in the negative and they were going to send me to collections unless I paid immediately or set up a payment plan to get my account in good standing again. A payment plan they would work out with me cause they care about me.
A FUCKING PAYMENT PLAN THAT I HAD BEEN ASKING FOR A MONTH TO GET AND THAT EVERYONE CLAIMED DIDN'T EXIST.
I was beyond livid. As you can see while the fucking cunts I had talked to played ignorant about the whole ordeal, my account had accrued a fucking ridiculous amount of fees. Convenient? Yes.
So, for an original negative balance of $24.17, I ended up paying $402.00 in fees. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWO DOLLARS.
That's 16.6 times the original amount, or 1663% interest for less than one month.
I'm all for personal responsibility, and I paid what I owed, but I think this is quite possibly the most disgustingly poor business practice I've ever come in contact with. I have 10 years of good standing with their company and it meant nothing. I was treated as if I was scum when asking for help, and I actually got an eye roll when I tried explaining the situation to the teller in person.
I've been trying really hard to just accept this as a learning experience, but I just can't get over it. I know there's nothing I can do, but at least I can warn as many people as possible to bank elsewhere.
* See how there are 3 overdraft fees, but only two actual items that were cleared? Well, apparently my account balance was pending from a deposit, so while the money was there, they didn't want to count it just yet...
** See how that's still pending? Conveniently, it will be pending until Monday. That way they can squeeze $16.00 out of me with the negative balance fee for Saturday and Sunday. There is no possible way to deposit money on the weekend and it count until Monday - even when I go in person with cash and give it directly to a teller. Nice.
*** I was told by a cunty US Bank employee when I called that if I didn't get my balance up to $16.00 to cover the negative balance fees I would be charged another $35.00 for going negative again. 'I just wanted to let you know so I could save you some money." Thanks lady, appreciate it.
