Comments on: Livid With Wachovia

By: jewel

jewel — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:52:44 +0000

Hey, I remember when we earned actual interest on bank accounts! Ah, the good old days. lol.

When I was growing up, we pronounced it “Walk all over ya”… When we opened the account, our bank was First union, but Wachovia absorbed them a few years back. And now Wells Fargo is absorbing Wachovia. Joy.

By: Chris A.

Chris A. — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:45:41 +0000

Can I tell my favorite banker incompetence/innumeracy story? Can I, can I, can I, please?
I had just moved and was opening a new account (which required separate savings and checking accounts to avoid big service fees). So I asked the accounts manager how much interest I was going to earn on each, commenting that I remembered the good old days when savings accounts earned 5% interest. She replied: “Well, your checking account earns 1%, and your savings account earns 2%, so although it’s not as good as 5%, 3% is pretty close.”
To this day I wish I had been quick enough to ask if I could open 50 savings accounts at 2% each so I could earn 100% interest.

P.S. You know how your bank got its name, don’t you? Their in-house motto is: “If you fall down, we’ll Wachovia.”

By: jewel

jewel — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:42:10 +0000

I think you’re on to something there.

By: Al

Al — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:42:45 +0000

I think the banks are trying to cure us of the delusion that it is in any sense “our” money…

By: Alan in Upstate NY

Alan in Upstate NY — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:10:45 +0000

I just got a “corrected” 1099 that is, again, incorrect. It appears to be even more incorrect than the first one.

Clear skies, Alan

By: jewel

jewel — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:42:39 +0000

Wow. That sounds like it was a nightmare. Banking can be such a pain in the ass. I’ve had a couple not so good experiences with Bank of America, too, although nothing like what you went through.

My own frustration with my situation was really with the customer service aspect. I knew that they’d fix the deposit, I had a receipt. But the attitude of the person that responded to my inquiry really is what pissed me off. I know that most of what was in the email was a canned response, but there are times when you need to at least acknowledge the frustration of your customer. Ya know like when you misplace a large deposit. I think that would warrant a little bit of understanding. They could have called the branch, they could have suggested that I visit the branch to talk to someone in person, they could have suggested a number of things that would have left me feeling like they at least gave a little bit of a damn. And they did none of those things. And the suggestion that I contact the IRS about the checks was ludicrous. I mean really.

The response I got letting me know it had been corrected and that the money had been credited to my account had the apologetic tone that the first response should have had. And had I gotten that kind of response the first time around, I probably wouldn’t have blogged about it. Or, if I would have felt compelled to blog about the experience it would have been with a completely different tone.

By: Lugosi

Lugosi — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:01:23 +0000

Back in January I use an ATM at Bank of America (not my usual bank). It kept telling me to take my cash even though I didn’t see any come out. Too late, I realized the cash dispenser was down low & out of site from my car window. It had pulled my cash back in!
The following Monday the $300 withdrawal showed up on my account when I checked online. I contact the Bank of America branch and they gave me an 800 number to call. That was hell on Earth because whenever I took the ATM related questions option it would ask me to log in. I tried other options, but I would always end up with a message telling me to log in. But since Bank of America wasn’t actually my bank, I couldn’t. Eventually I somehow reached a live person, got shuffled around to a couple of diggerent people, and eventually ended up at the ATM department which was again telling me to log in.

So I waited a couple of days just to see if the $300 would show up in my own account again. When it didn’t, I had to repeat my fruitless phone exercise with Bank of America. This time I finally got a lady who told me I had to go to my own bank to file a claim. I pointed out that the problem was with a Bank of America machine, but she repeated that I had to go to my own bank.

So I did, and the assistant branch manager looked at me and said, well, what are we supposed to about it? She made a phone call, and eventually someone told her I had to write a brief note explaining what happened. Surprisingly enough, the $300 finally showed up in my account a week later.

The whole episode was frustrating beyond belief. But the thing that REALLY pissed me off was, why does Bank of America charge $3.00 bucks for non customers who use their ATM’s if they’re not going to provide any support when there’s a problem?

By: jewel

jewel — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:11:12 +0000

Your situation sounds like it was loads of fun Alan! I’d be beside myself…

By: Alan in Upstate NY

Alan in Upstate NY — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:00:40 +0000

That’s what happened to our mortgage curtailment – it was credited to someone else. We only got a year end statement, so it was some months before we found out.

Glad your problem got taken care of easily.

Clear skies, Alan

By: jewel

jewel — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:36:11 +0000

Thankfully, they managed to “find” my deposit. I really didn’t want to have to ‘go down there’.

I am glad I always keep the receipts — at least until everything clears. I would have been sooo screwed. Although they did not tell me what the problem was, I figure they originally credited the cash to someone elses account. Unless that branch had some sort of clitch that caused a 2 day delay in all their deposits, which I don’t really find likely.

Oh well, all is good now.