“I’m not quite sure how my almost-septuagenarian, fastidious, wheelchair-bound, Social Security Disability-stipend mother did it, but she forgot to list a large utilities check in her register and managed to spend over $400 that she didn’t have. For a total of TWENTY overdraft and NSF charges (at $32 a charge). Between the overdrafts, the unpaid checks (and the bounce fees on the payee side of the equation), she’s managed to tally up more than $1800 in unforeseen debt in the last two weeks. She only gets about $1000 a month, and her last check was deposited before we knew how much trouble she was in, paying this emergency debt down to about $-330 in her checking account and $500 in outstanding bounced checks and fees, and leaving her no money for utilities and no friends or relatives to beg for help from…”
Through this financial fiasco she has managed to bounce two consecutive electricity bills and her next SS check isn’t due for another two weeks. She has received written notice that her power will be turned off in the next couple days. Did I mention she’s in Atlanta, where the high today is something like 105 degrees (not counting the heat index)? I had to go to the bank and try to beg the capitalists for some mercy. I had to keep the power on.
We visited the local branch this morning, and the local WaMU branch officer we spoke to offered to remove two charges, but no more, as my mother freely admits all this is her own fault. A very generous offer, I thought, but not good enough.
It turns out that if we could get ALL of those 20 NSF charges reversed, she’d have about four dollars left over after paying the minimum to keep her air conditioner going, and could get current (pardon the pun) when her next disability check comes. I knew I was aiming high, but I was desperate – I’d spent the last of my own money
to pay for her prescription medications and right now I’m just an unemployed tech support geek. We’re both living on peanut butter and bananas right now.Enter Rosie Alvarez of the WaMu Executive Response team, courtesy of the Consumerist post here (“Contact WaMu Executive Customer Service“). It turns out that extension 467 is Ms. (Mrs?) Alzarez’s direct line. I called her from the branch office and left her a desperate message, and she called me back in less than an hour.
I want to give Ms. Alvarez a wet, sloppy internet kiss and Washington Mutual a big Above and Beyond shoutout. No, they didn’t credit my mom all 20 of the charges, but WaMu has promised to reverse ten of them in the next 24 hours, leaving my mom with basically a zero balance in her account. She’s probably going to be without electricity for what
may be one of the hottest weeks in local history, but when her check comes she’ll be able to safely pay down her power bill and get her expenses back on track.And for that I am overwhelmingly grateful.
Sincerely,
Joe A.
If you choose to post this above and beyond, I have one optional part: I have a paypal address, joe@techseaport.com, that could be used to accept donations to go towards paying her power bill. I have documentation to prove her financial trouble, but I also have no desire to insult you, your readers or your business policies/ practices by soliciting. I just want to keep her power on.
Thank you for considering this post and for all the valuable information you’ve shared with the world.
And that, folks, is why executive customer service shall always and forever be, for the win.
Oh, and please don’t overdraft. You’re just buying yourself a one-way ticket on the nonstop train to ImpecunioCity.
Joe, we also want you to try these numbers for groups in your area that provide emergency funds for seniors struggling to meet energy payments (via Georgia Natural Gas). Some of them may just be for heating but others may work for electricity or be able to point you in the direction of the right relief agencies:
Statewide Assistance
o Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), administered by the Georgia Department of Human Resources – 404-657-3426 or 404-657-3427 (inside metro Atlanta); 1-800-869-1150 (outside Atlanta)
o Project Share of the Salvation Army – 770-441-6200
o United Way Referral Program – Dial 211
Metro Atlanta-Based Assistance
o Atlanta Regional Commission, Aging Services – 404-463-3333
o Buckhead Christian Ministry – 404-239-0038 (serves these ZIP codes: 30305, 30309, 30311, 30318, 30319, 30324, 30326, 30327, 30329, 30340, 30341, 30342, 30345, 30360, and 30363)
o Midtown Assistance Center – 404-681-5777
o Resource Service Ministries – 404-352-5440
o St. Vincent DePaul Society – 770-458-9607
o Senior Connections – 770-455-7602, ext. 151
o The Sullivan Center – 404-753-0535
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What is with all the “blame the victim” comments? Are you all so perfect that you never made one mistake in your perfect lives? You know absoulutely nothing about this guy and his mother beyond what has been posted so stop making assumptions. So the guy asked for donations to help his mom. Big deal. He wants her to have A/C and food to eat. Wow. What a horrible son for reaching out to strangers and asking for a little help. I hope all of you “perfect” posters get arthritis and have to live on social security, if it’s still around by then. If not, I’ll wave to to you as I drive over the bridge you’re living under.
on thing to note about the way banks process checks… (I’m not a banker, so i could be off here)
imagine you did bills and sent out checks for the following (est)
– House Note $1000
– Car Note $350
– Utilities $150
– Medical Bill $50
– Grandkids birthday check $10
I don’t know about you, but I am much more concerned about my house payment bouncing vs a birthday check bouncing. Though embarrassing as having a check bounce to a family member, at least it won’t go against my credit score for having a late house payment and any fees that may be assessed for a bounced check by the mortgage company.
Obviously, all of the bills are important to be paid, but overall I would say it is good to clear the bigger ticket items first for both the account holder and banks financial interest.
O
Y’all beat me to it. I was just wondering where this dude lives. Is he unemployed and living with mom and both of them are going to boil or is he just going to let her boil alone? Because if he was a good son living somewhat near by that he can go and plead with her bank, he can sure well take his mother home with him.
@gibsonic: That only makes sense if they would actually bounce. The bank orders them so that the bigger amount goes first, allowing smaller ones to incur more overdraft fees. It is purely for profit, and has nothing to do with the banks concern that larger checks go through.
After all, with that logic the big check should go through and the smaller ones should bounce. But they don’t because banks want the fee. If they processed them
- Car Note $350
- Utilities $150
- Medical Bill $50
- House Note $1000
- Grandkids birthday check $10
All get cashed, all incur fees. The difference is that in your case you have 5 fees and in this above case you have 2 fees. Do banks even bounce checks anymore?
@scoobydoo:
That’s just not fair. Unless you’re independently wealthy, most people only have access to a finate amount of money. Once you’ve gone through your checking and savings … that’s it. You can max out your credit cards … but then what?
Yes, I’d have my mom stay at my house until the heat wave passed or until her check came through. Yes, I’d try to sell whatever I had to help her. But it sounds as though Ben has gone over and above to try to help his Mom through this difficult time.
@ Gibsonic
NO, it’s not good for customers when a bank clears larger checks first. Banks should clear checks in the order they are received. I view any other practice as highly unethical.
In the example you’ve given, you, personally, “may” find some perceived benefit. The thing is, banks do not prioritize clearing of checks to the customer’s order of importance. Ethical banks clear checks in the order received, unethical banks clear larger checks first to maximize penalty fees.
In your scenario, if you had only $1000 in the bank, you’d pay at least 4, perhaps as many as 8 penalty fees. At $35 per bounce, with each check posted twice, this would cost you $280 in fees.
But had the checks been cashed from smallest amount to largest amount, your penalty fee would be $70. If you had a no-repost request in your account, your total penalty would be $35.
You’re saying you’d rather suffer $280 in penalty fees than $70. . . I don’t think there are many people who would agree with your decision. Well, other than the large banks who make a lot of money off of people like you.
BTW, Join a credit union and you’ll be abused a lot less frequently.
@ativadelor:
i personally don’t have a problem with over drafting my account. not because i have tons of money but because i properly manage my money.
i agree, checks should be processed in the order they were received…period. I’m just saying if for some reason they chose a priority, i would won’t the most important ones paid first, which for me is largest to smallest….personal preference i guess.
in my earlier years before i figured out how to manage my finances properly and I had less income, the couple of times i did get overdrawn weren’t a big deal as my bank forgave them without much to-do.
Asking for money could be construed as inappropriate, but it is certainly less annoying than posts where people just skim and hate.
Btw, can I donate to this site to prevent people like xian from hawking his website in his replies?
@boandmichele: I have no problem of a multimillion dollar corporation taking money from a 90+ woman as long as it was stated in the original contract which both parties have agreed upon. Especially it is not like she was born yesterday and did not know how our economic system work. She had 90+ years to get familiar with it. Ha!
@Tian: Probably not worth the effort to respond to your comment, but if you’d bothered to read the post (gee, there’s a concept) she paid everything and simply forgot to put one payment in her register. Irresponsible? Hardly.
By the way, how many hits have you gotten from linking to your site in every comment? Three? Four?
@techseaport: dude, turn off your computer & call the power company RIGHT NOW! 100+ degree weather is not just uncomfortable for seniors, IT’S LIFE THREATENING.
power companies will work with you to keep the power from getting cut off. simply explain your predicament & ask to establish payment arrangements to keep the power on. the worst thing you can do is nothing.
@drjayphd: Apparently learning about finanical responsibility is not needed in today’s world.
Everytime we run into finanical troubles, let’s all just cry to our banks, credit unions, or mommies & daddies, because it is not our fault of how to manage money.
boohoo!
@Tian: The point isn’t whether or not it’s her fault. The point is whether or not it’s an anti-consumer move on behalf of WaMu to charge $1800 for something that (as far as my calculations go) likely didn’t cost them 0.1% of that.
I do stuff that’s my fault all the time. But if someone kicks me in the balls for doing it, I’m going to kick right back.
@ingridc: I guess you missed the words “utilities check”.
It’s not like she had a choice.
@brennie:
Having worked in marketing research at a bank, I can break down the fees for you. In the words of a Senior Vice President, “make them as high as you can, fees go right to the bottom line.” We used to do research to determine what competitors were charging and what the market would bear and then charge the maximum possible.
My son has a small account at U.S. Bank to cover his daily expenses at college. He doesn’t use it during the summer. A few weeks ago, a bogus “non-PIN ATM withdrawl” (non-PIN?????) appeared on his account. They took all the money in the account plus about $4.00. About a week later, he received an e-mail telling him he was overdrawn. He immediately went into the account, found all his money gone, an overdraft fee of $35, plus a fee of $2 per day for being overdrawn. By this time, the fees were up to $73. He immediately called to report the fraud, and was told that the fees would be rescinded only after “investigation” proved that the transaction was fraudulent. In the mean time, unless he made a deposit to cover the overdraft and the fees, he was told that more fees would accrue at the rate of $2 per day.
He also was informed that the investigation would take about two weeks (why?) and he would be informed of their determination at that time. We wait with baited breath…
it isn’t great service when they are raping you for thousands of dollars and agree to only rape you for hundreds of dollars so your mom doesnt die and cause bad publicity.
There is a system of government that balances out the power of having alot of money by letting everyone vote. Its called democracy. If we had that here banks wouldnt be able to pull this crap. They made over 14 billion bucks in one year raping poor people with these fees. Why do we allow it to happen?
For goodness sakes, you’d think from the responses to my comment that I was advocating killing the woman or something.
@Sidecutter & Buran:: No need to get snarky about “reading comprehension”. I read it fine, TYVM; I was unclear about how her money was budgeted. I.e. was the utility bill in her budget but she spent $400 on something else? Or was the utility bill the $400? Apparently it’s been plenty clarified it was merely for the utilities, so thanks for that.
@Nemesis_Enforcer: I do have a heart, which is why I made a case for max overdraft fees. In fact, I feel WaMu could have taken off way more of the charges, if not all. I merely speculated that if it wasn’t a utility bill she spent the $400 on, I wouldn’t be as sympathetic to a Paypal solicitation. Emphasis on “IF“.
I should add that the main reason I was unclear about the origin of the $400 was because she was charged for TWENTY overdrafted transactions. It seemed like there might have been transactions in there that weren’t for bills. OK that’s all.
@bohemian:
That reminds me, one of the utilities in my state or city (New York, New York) once asked me to add my name as a contact on my parent’s account. They said they do that routinely for elderly/disabled customers, so in case of a problem with a bill or service, if they can’t contact the customer or communicate with them for some reason, they can call the contact person before the account gets cut off. I was very grateful for it, actually.
LW might ask all his local utilities if they could set that up for his mother’s accounts so he will have enough advance notice to make arrangements if anything unexpected happens.
This happened to me once last year by accident.
I went in the red for about $200, using my debit card freely for a couple of days until I realized it..
I got a fee of $35 for each of the six items:
- spending $10 at the supermarket: $10 PLUS $35 fee
- renting a movie: $3 PLUS $35 fee
etc.
I was mad at the bank for charging me such extravagant fees.
I called them and complained. They said that since it was the first time this had happened to me, they would reverse half of the fees. I think that this is a standard reaction on their part. So I ended up being charged an extra $105 for the privilege of having had the bank loan me $200 for a few days.
It may be legal according to the rules, but I find it abusive.
In the place of the man writing the story, I would not be particularly thankful: the bank effectively lent his mother $400 at an interest rate of 87% per month!!!
I can only hope that when my parents are advanced in age, I will not resort to paypal donations from strangers to keep their power on. (I’m sure they’d be disappointed if I did that and they found out.) The story and the comments provided a lot of good, useful info, but the panhandling was definitely a turnoff.
I think it may be time to start taking care of your mothers money responsibilities. It’s quite painfully obvious that it will benefit all of you if you control the money from now on and give her an allowance for any “extras” she wants.
@Havok154: Umm… Actually, I don’t know that there would be much benefit to letting a guy who can’t even help his mom pay a power bill control the money.
Much less someone who rights to Consumerist and begs BEFORE pleading Mom’s case to the power company.
All Mom did was bounce a check. At this point, I would be ok with letting Mom control HIS money.
Damn, Havok … the man said “I’d spent the last of my own money to pay for her prescription medications and right now I’m just an unemployed tech support geek.”
Do you have any idea how much prescriptions can run for elderly people? We’re talking into the *hundreds* of dollars. He’s already spent the LAST of his own money to get her by … he’s not homeless and on crack … he’s a responsible, loving son who is TRYING to get his mother out of a bind.
An important element is being missed during all this discussion of how and when banks debit checks. They not only debit the largest check first instead of in order but all credits are honored -after- debits are taken for the day. Thus even if a deposit was in line to cover the amount of debits from the account the account holder would still be charged overdraft fees for drafts that should never have gone negative in the first place. I’ve had this happen to me at almost every bank I’ve done business with. Of course, I’m a low income, no equity customer.
@Cowboys_fan: How rude and uncompassionate. I wish that was your Pay Pal address so I could have someone send some you money and then dispute it after you spent it and let you clean up the mess.
It is a shame that WE cannot help and take care of senior citizens, choosing between prescriptions, utilities, and food is a position no one should be in. Far to many Americans are in this position.
I went bankrupt helping my Grandmother with her medicine that she could not afford on her Social Security – My Grandfather’s pension went bust and no the government did not bail it out. I would go bankrupt again and again for anyone in my family.
F the system and well you, Cowboys_fan, will get yours.
@swvaboy: Its not that I lack sympathy, its that I take offence to how the guy went about all this. First, being a tech geek, he can make his own website and instead of outright soliciting, he can post a link to that site, where he can solitic all he wants. Is there nowhere in this world/internet where one can go without people wanting money? If I WANT to give them money, I’ll email consumerist and arrange through them if I can’t find another way. I’m sure by posting this, some people may seek him out anyway to donate, so you don’t need to solicit us. Would you really keep coming here if every post conatined solicitation? Before I do something, I ask myself, what would life be like if everybody made the same decision. I am an altruist, I think we should take care of each other and if you read previous comments you would see that. However, that does not give me, nor anyone the right to solicit money on a consumer website.
And then for TECHSEAPORT to come back and put it on the consumerist is completely inappropriate. If I sent a post to them, I would expect they post the entire email, and not edit parts they don’t like/want.
We ALL have grandparents, and I’m sure most of us would do anything they can for them, but there is a line, and IMO, this guy crossed it.
Some of you people would make great CSRs. Cold, heartless, and just plain jerks.
For all those questioning why the guy doesn’t have his mother move in
with him: he mentioned that she’s in a wheelchair. Did you ever stop to
think that just maybe his living quarters are not wheel chair
accessible? Maybe he’s renting a room from someone. Kinda tough to have
Mom move in with you there.
And as far as ragging on the guy to get a job–it’s not that easy. I
was laid off and out of work for six months. I’m a graphic designer but
I applied for anything. Fast food, mall jobs, retail. Want to know how
many responses I got? None. Potential employers figured that I wouldn’t
stick around very long, so why bother hiring me.
Sheesh, people.
So, cut on line out of the story and replace it with: I have a website you can visit to help out? For someone to ask for help does not offend me, as I said it is only one line. Why focus on that line when there is so much more to the story?
What difference does that line make?
According to Lysander Spooner, who writes, in Natural Law: “Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will, perform them.” FROM WIKI
You are correct COWBOYS_FAN It is up to each of us.
A hopefully last post from me on this.
First, I want to thank everyone who donated.
All $285 of it went to keeping her power on, and I found a Cobb/Fulton county charity who provides food baskets to the poor and am in contact with them. I’ve also started the process of getting my mother on a couple of state programs, and you wouldn’t believe how difficult these processes are, especially for someone who does not have experience with “the system.”
I won’t comment on the negative posts here except to say that I firmly believe everyone is welcome to their own opinions, even if I don’t agree with them or how they were stated.