I am often in a position where I can tell I’m going to “run out of money” before my next income check will come. I imagine there are many people who find themselves in this predicament from time to time, or all the time, depending on differing factors. Anyway, I find this often happens from a few days to a week before I expect my next check. During this interim I watch my bank balance like a hawk to make sure I don’t go below zero, because if I do, my bank will charge me $27.00 for each transaction or bank charge that hits my account while it’s below zero.
This is what’s been happening—example:
• I would have $35 in my account
• I would then spend $20 on something since I felt I could go down to $15 safely
• Then all of a sudden the next day, I would see that 3 charges hit my account adding up to $30. And since I spent that $20 yesterday, I am now below zero with 2 of the charges being Presented Against Insufficient Funds with a charge of $27 each—in this example totaling $54 in bank charges.
Now, if I knew that $30 worth of charges were just around the corner waiting to hit my account, I never would have spent the $20. I would have “held off”, gone without, whatever, to avoid a $54.00 charge. WHO WOULDN’T?
This is what I suspect the bank is doing:
When they see someone has a low, near zero, bank balance, they “hold on” to charges until they see that putting them through will put the person below zero, and when they see such an opportunity arise they JUMP ON IT and slam the account with a bunch of charges all at once, enough to bring it below zero and simultaneously charge $27.00 for each insufficient funds transaction. I would think they try to put as many smaller charges together as possible to maximize the number of “hits”. I even further suspect that they watch for accounts with a “pattern” of consistently getting low a few days before their paycheck and “flag” these accounts as ones to watch. This would be a good way for the bank to make money on mostly low-balance accounts from poorer people who tend to live check to check where they wouldn’t make much money otherwise, compared to high-balance accounts which builds the bulk of their assets where they make the most money I would think, by investing it, loaning it, whatever and earning interest.
I can guess what you’re thinking—this complaint has little or no legal weight because it’s each consumer’s personal responsibility to balance their own checkbook. I realize this is true, but I believe the bank is still responsible for a scam for this reason:
Like many people I would think, my #1 method for checking my current bank balance is by going online to my online banking session and checking it there. For WaMu (and I would think for most other banks) your balance is displayed by two amounts: an Available Balance and a Ledger Balance. I have only recently switched my account to Washington Mutual; For about 10+ years I banked with Downey Savings. I would always DEPEND on the accuracy of my Available Balance (which was often less than my Ledger Balance). If there was a pending charge, it would be reflected in my Available Balance. So, when my available balance showed $35 on Downey Savings’ online banking session, I KNEW I HAD $35. I could plan around that and spend here and there in small amounts while I waited for my check to come in so I could exhale again. BUT, I recently found out that with Washington Mutual this is not the case.
About 4 days ago I had an Available Balance of $10 and something cents and at the same time I had a Ledger Balance of $39.98. 1 day ago I saw that my Available Balance went up to $20.51. WHAT HAPPENED?! I didn’t make a deposit, I didn’t do anything, I was still in what I call “financial lock-down”, “holding my breath” until my check comes, which is expected any day now.
I called the bank to ask how my balance mysteriously went up. (This entire time my Leger Balance remained at $39.98 as it was before). The WaMu Customer Service Rep explained to me that merchants have 2 days to put their transaction through. If they don’t in that time, the charge is “removed” from my balance and my Available Balance reflects as though that money is available (as the term “Available” in “Available Balance” suggests). That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t have to pay that charge; it can hit my account at any time, I just won’t know when. I’ve seen charges hit my account about a month after I remember doing them. So what’s happening is, when I use my debit card, the merchant’s card machine checks to make sure there are sufficient funds and simultaneously WaMu electronically deducts them from my Available Balance (usually reflected online by an hour afterwards at most). But then, if the merchant doesn’t put the charge through within 2 days, the amount is removed from my Available Balance and makes my Available Balance look like I have more than I actually do (since that money is spoken for). And then I have no idea when these “floating” charges will finally descend and hit my account.
2 days? That’s all? Does the bank honestly think that if a merchant hasn’t put through their charge in 2 days it means they’re probably not going to? What kind of nonsense is that? Do they think by about 2 days the merchant loses their interest in getting their money? Of course they don’t!
Think about this: The whole point of having 2 balances, Available and Ledger, is so that people can have an accurate idea of their account. Otherwise, just a Leger Balance would be enough. What’s the point of having an Available Balance if it isn’t what’s actually available? Well, with this policy of giving merchants only 2 days to submit their purchases and then removing the charge from reflecting in our Available Balance if they don’t leaves consumers like me with no idea what our Available balance actually is because who knows when those floating charges are going to hit?
Now I understand that there may be a problem with merchants taking too long to submit their charges and there being a need to set a deadline; and I further realize that if a merchant takes a year to finally find a charge they forgot to process, my bank balance shouldn’t reflect the money being unavailable the entire time; but this notwithstanding, it’s pretty clear to me that 2 days is way too short, and I can’t help but think that this policy majorly facilitates running the scam I believe to be operating as I’ve described.
People should be able to go online, look at their Available Balance, and have faith that that’s how much money they have to work with. You can’t tell me there’s no way to accommodate the need to give merchants a deadline and yet reflect a person’s TRUE balance. It wouldn’t be hard. Let’s say that even though the merchant has two days to get their transaction in, the online computer waits a full month before considering the charge to be added back to your Available Balance. The bank’s website development team could EASILY do that I’m sure . In my opinion, they want to leave it the way it is (perhaps they even created it the way it is) for the sole purpose of hanging on to charges and scamming people into overdraft charges they would have avoided if they knew their Available Balance.
This is immoral and should be considered illegal, not to mention very costly for people who tend to live check to check. It makes the poor even poorer and the already rich even richer.
Please let me know what steps you think need to be taken to stop WaMu and banks like them from getting away with this.
|
|
