Most of us have had weird experiences with financial institutions. What's your story? [View All]

[MindPilot]

Here's mine

After First Interstate Bank took over San Diego Trust and Savings, I never was able to reconcile my checkbook. So I waited for all my outstanding checks to come in and went into the bank to close all my accounts. As it turned out, the bank's definition of "all" was slightly different than mine. I was unaware they had failed to close the overdraft protection account, a five hundred dollar credit line to guard against bounced checks.

About eighteen months later, I begin receiving dunning letters and phone messages from First Interstate. When I finally got to talk to a real person, I became involved in the most bizarre conversation I've ever had that didn't involve intoxicants. (I'm not making this up!)

FI: "You need to make a payment right away to avoid collection proceedings."

Me: "I'm just curious here. Does it always take you a year and a half to decide some one is late with a payment?"

FI: "What do you mean?"

Me: "I mean I haven't been anywhere near your bank for 18 months. If I failed to make a payment, wouldn't you have notified me oh, say, 17 months ago?"

FI: "But you're only late this month."

Me: "I want to be very clear on this: I have made no deposits, payments, withdrawals or any other transactions with First Interstate since I closed my accounts 18 months ago."

FI: "Well, obviously somebody has been making the payments for you."

Me "Who?"

FI: "I don't know, a family member, or maybe your wife?"

Me: "I'm not married, I live alone, and have no family within a couple of thousand miles of here."

FI: "Well, sir, SOMEBODY is making those payments!"

Me:" So, you're telling me that somebody I don't know is going to a bank I don't do business with, making payments on an account I don't have, and not telling me about it?"

FI: "Yes!"

Turns out the bank's system automatically debited the checking account to pay the overdraft account. If there was no money in the checking account, the system transferred $25 from the overdraft account to the checking account, then made a payment essentially paying itself. What the system DIDN'T do was verify if the checking account it debited actually existed! Finally the overdraft account hit its limit and when it could no longer pay itself, the dunning began.