We have more than a passing interest in customer service over here, so it always amuses us when a company loses a customer simply because they’re too stubborn to apologize for messing up.
“I’m sorry,” costs nothing. All those commercials touting Wachovia’s reputation for customer service… are those free? No, we didn’t think so. Reader Cory writes:
I made a deposit before the cutoff time into a Wachovia branch ATM with one check in it– a check from my Business Account drawn on Wachovia into my personal account, drawn on Wachovia. The Business account had plenty of money to cover the check, the personal account was on fumes, with most bills needing to go out yesterday, 6/4.
They placed a hold on the check.
That’s right– they placed a hold on THEIR CHECK from an account with verifiable funds in it. It gets better.
It certainly does. Read Cory’s email inside.
Cory writes:
I’ve been a Wachovia member since 1999. I incorporated my business 2 years ago and use Wachovia for my business checking as well. On Thurs 5/31, I made a deposit before the cutoff time into a Wachovia branch ATM with one check in it– a check from my Business Account drawn on Wachovia into my personal account, drawn on Wachovia. The Business account had plenty of money to cover the check, the personal account was on fumes, with most bills needing to go out yesterday, 6/4.
They placed a hold on the check.
That’s right– they placed a hold on THEIR CHECK from an account with verifiable funds in it. It gets better.
The woman who placed the hold, Ms. T [redacted] placed the hold without notating the account as to why exactly she had done so. She left the office Thursday, and did not return on Friday, nor did she return on Monday. On Saturday, I tried to use my card to buy gas, and it was declined. Looking at the account, although the deposit appeared on the posted balance, the available balance had gone negative. I called customer service, and they explained that a hold had been placed on the account, but they couldn’t tell me why, and I’d have to call back on Monday.
On Monday, I called back and waited 30 minutes to get a live individual, as Ms. T was out of the office. The woman handling the call said she couldn’t see why the hold had been placed, but eventually, I convinced her to drop the hold and restore the funds. She said she’d do it immediately.
On Monday afternoon, I went to use the card again, and found it had no funds available. I called back, waited again, and they had no record whatsoever of my conversation in the morning, although they immediately removed the hold with almost no question (whereas I had to convince her to do it in the morning)
I continued to try to find out why this happened– the afternoon customer service rep acted as if she was doing me a real favor by releasing the hold without knowing why it was placed on hold, and nobody I spoke to could give me a clear answer.
I went to my branch this morning, and they couldn’t tell me anything– they had no record of the hold ever being placed. (I pointed out that my overdraft protection had kicked in over the weekend, so there was SOME record of that.) The local branch, very nice and polite, offered to get Ms. T on the phone, and succeeded where I had failed.
They put me on the phone with her, and she proceeded to explain that the deposit “had not been uploaded in their system so that they could see it” so there was no way to verify “what was in the envelope.” But here’s the kicker– they refused to acknowledge that it was their fault, and proceeded to tell me that they could hold any deposit from anyone anytime they wanted to, I should go read my terms of service.
At that point, all I wanted was her to say “yeah, we had a technical problem, I’m so sorry for your inconvenience, and I’m sorry I forgot to notate your account.” But this woman would not concede that anything was improper anyway, and this was perfectly acceptable. From one side of her mouth she was saying “it didn’t get uploaded” but kept saying “it’s not our fault” and acting as if its perfectly reasonable to hold locally drawn Wachovia checks with verifiable funds being deposited into Wachovia accounts.
The thing that really kills me is that as of today’s mail, 6/5, I still haven’t been notified of the hold– there’s no reason in this day and age not to be able to generate an email or call if something like this happens. I get calls once every 2 months from my credit card company’s fraud division– they let the charges go through, but if something isn’t quite right (I bought gas two times in a row for myself and my wife) they call. Why can’t the bank do the same?
Why are they absolutely unapologetic about this?
And while I’m at it, with the new “Check 21″ why is this an issue at all? They clear faster when you write em, holds are taking the same amount of time. Check 21 is just more corporate welfare.
I’m off to find a new bank. Any bank that tells me that they can hold my check anytime they damn well please, no matter how insane a hold it is doesn’t deserve my business– or anyone else’s.
Cory
And that’s how you lose a customer. —MEGHANN MARCO
(Photo: Maulleigh)
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@Asvetic: As he pointed out, one was a business account and the other personal. You cannot connect those, they are separate tax entities….
@ladycrumpet: Well, that is one good vote for Suntrust… I live in ATL and ST is based here, so ATMs everywhere!
It sounds to me like they may be some confusion here as to what “Clearing” a check means. Most banks will allow you access to your funds on the next business day for a check not drawn on that bank, but this is usually a courtesy. The check then has to go to the originating bank for your bank to get its money. If there is a problem with the check, the originating bank will return it to your bank and then a hold will be placed. There could be a lag of a day or two as not everyone can clear checks electronically. This would cause your account to show a check one day, and have it held the next. Banks fo this to protect themselves from losses.
People still write checks?
You can transfer funds between personal and business. The only problem you run into is if your business is incorporated and theres a check made payable to the business, its needs to go through the corp. account before you distribute the funds. But once the check has cleared in the business account, of course you can transfer the money out as long as you are an owner of the business. If you are just a signer you would need to write yourself a check.
I stand corrected on my post. Reg CC stipulates that on the first business day following the banking day of deposit:
“Checks drawn on an account held by your institution (“on-us checks”) deposited in person to one of your employees or at on-premises ATMs or night depositories, if the branch or branches involved are in the same state or check-processing region.”
So unless Cory had a history of overdrafts, he is completely correct and Wachovia is completely wrong. If he has a history of overdrafts, then Wachovia would be allowed to delay his deposit.
I still think there are inconsistencies in Cory’s story, but the regulations are certainly on his side.
@TinaT: Um, yes. Businesses write checks all the time. It costs a lot less than a wire transfer. Since his accounts are not connected, I’m assuming he doesn’t have the ability to do a transfer on-line or by phone.
Edit: Reg CC stipulates that on the first business day following the banking day of deposit… the following must be made available:
“Checks drawn on an account held…
@mmartinphd: USAA charges no fees on foreign (which is all of ‘em) ATMs, PLUS they refund the fees that the ATM owners charge you. [sigh] Oh, USAA.
@Buran: Credit union.
I also bank with Wachovia and had an issue similar to this. I deposited several checks over several days as I was going to buy a car. I went to the branch a week or so later to get a bank check for 12000 dollars. My online statement said everything had cleared and both the Posted and Available funds were well over 12000 dollars. I was in the bank for over 2 hours while they called this person and that person to verify the funds. I hit a roadblock because they had failed to upload the image of the check. It took the bank manager an hour and a half to get someone on the phone from headquarters who could remotely access her PC, go in through some back door and find an image of the check. I’ve had horrendous experiences with Wachovia customer service in the past and since then. This one shining example is the exception. It took two hours, but I didnt feel like I’d been called an idiot like every other time I’ve been into a branch or called their customer service number. They’re idiots, one and all. I still bank there though…who knows why.
Did anyone bother to read the story? KEY PORTION:
“I made a deposit before the cutoff time into a Wachovia branch ATM with one check in it”
Guess what? If you bothered to read the bank disclosures given to you when you opened your bank account, you would know that check deposits made via ATM are subject to a 2-day hold. Surprise, surprise, it’s right there in black in white.
If it’s THAT important that the check clear immediately, make the transaction with a HUMAN teller whether via phone, or in-person.
I see everyone trying to jump Wachovia’s case on this one, but it’s truly a case where it’s not their fault. Any check you drop into an ATM has to be manually entered by a teller when the machine is emptied.
Even my credit union’s very up-front that checks will take an additional day to clear when deposited via ATM. The reason for this? Too many people were making fraudulent deposits by stuffing empty envelopes into the ATM machine, then would make a withdrawl that day before the CU figured out what happened. Some of the latest Diebold ATMs are capable of scanning the checks directly, and when these become more prevalent, they’ll probably do away with the delay.
@kpanov: If you do the autodownloading into quicken, they now charge $5.95 a month (see previous Consumerist story about that), if you do it manually, you don’t pay.
@healthdog: I’m going to check with USAA today! Thanks.
Is there any way to check how crappy a bank corp is online?
@FLConsumer:
Actually, you are wrong. I made the same comment and corrected myself. If you read my correction, you’ll find that Cory made a deposit of a check from his own bank and Reg CC says that such deposits, even at an ATM, must be available on the first business day following the banking day of deposit.
@Seth_Went_to_the_Bank: I don’t see how any bank could comply with this given the existing base of ATM machines. They wouldn’t know where the check came from until a human manually extracts the check from the ATM and processes it. Considering how up-front Wachovia is about ATM deposits taking additional time, I still place the blame on Cory. You shouldn’t be cutting things THAT closely that a 1-2 day delay causes an issue.
For people saying switch to a credit union, it’s not always that simple because not all credit unions offer business services. USAA doesn’t, which is why my wife and I had to find another bank like Wachovia to handle our business checking needs.
In the instance of Wachovia, we were unable to setup automatic transfers between our business and personal checking accounts, even though both were at Wachovia. So we had to do what Cory did — write business checks and deposit them into our personal checking account.
The same issue that mmartinphd is now experiencing bit us recently as well. I was able to get the first Quicken charge rolled back, but I’m stuck paying additional charges until I can switch banks. Wachovia was once a nice institution, but they’re bending us over nowadays and refuse to apologize to us as well. We’ll have to keep our business account there or at a similar institution, but our personal checking business is now going back to USAA.
I’ve been aggravated with bogus “holds” on deposits from both my credit union and Bank of America. Any suggestions for identifying institutions that won’t do this?
I am an attorney, and frequently get paid by check. I am investigating processing payments as ACH payments rather than depositing checks in my bank. I am not excited about this, because when I’m acting as a consumer I think it’s creepy, but I’m sick of having to watch the bank like a hawk to figure out whether or not I can write a check to cover rent or payroll.
They did something similar to me – I deposited a check through their ATM, and they lost it. I had no idea about the error until I received a bank statement saying that my account had gone into overdraft, and that I owed them $200 in overdraft fees. When I called about the error, they informed me that they’d be happy to research their error (for a $70 research fee). The check itself was only for $100. They “found” the check, erased my overdraft fees, but kept my $70. That’s when I switched to the State Employees Credit Union.
Guaranty Bank is another nightmare. I deposited $400 cash in my account before closing time. As explained to me by the rather snooty customer service man, because I didn’t meet their “cut-off” time, my available balance was only $100. The full amount was not going to be available till the next evening. I was dinged $35 for a $105 check that cleared the morning after my deposit. Although my online banking NEVER showed I went in the red, Guaranty insisted that I had exceeded by “available” balance. I reminded him that I deposited CASH, not a check. He insisted that if I managed my account better it wouldn’t happen and perhaps I should sign up for their overdraft protection. I asked him whether he preferred to lose a customer or a service fee. He backed down saying he would do this as a one time courtesy!
I have to say that on the one hand I can appreciate the frustration and the anger I’m reading in the prior postings. On the other hand, I have no idea where some of the expectations that people hold may come from.
When you have a check, you have a piece of paper. Not cash money, not coins, not bars of precious metal-a piece of paper. One of millions that a large bank has to transport every day from the branch to a processing center, and then either move physically through a federal reserve branch or electronify and move through the same channels.
As for the vaunted credit unions and smaller, local banks, you may all be suprised to know that the majority of them process all their items through larger banks as well. They simply can’t support the necessary staffing and infrastructure to do it in-house.
Which brings me to my central point; banks accept a risk every time they accept your piece of paper and exchange it for cash or available credit in your account. In fact, banks accept a LOT of risks when they handle your money-that’s why they were created. They exchange risk and convenience (yours) for profit (theirs).
Without banks you’d have to carry all your money with you everywhere in a sack. Or hide it somewhere before you went to work every day. When you got paid you’d have to carry hit home at your own risk. If you bought something large like a car or house you’d have to bring a friend to help you guard the cash or gold on the way.
Please; step back and take a realistic look at all of the transactions you make every day, and multiply that by 10-20 million people for the average large bank.
Business as usual for the #1 in Customer Service Bank in the wolrd…WALKALLOVERYA!