Yesterday I walked away from Commerce Bank victorious: my entire balance in my wallet, my fees reversed, and my account closed. I had an account there that I just sort of kept as a “money in a book” account. You know, you hide money in a book on your shelf so you forget about it and one day when you really need some extra scratch you realize, hey wait, I’ve got that money in a book. Except this way I wouldn’t run the risk of forgetting which book it was. In retrospect I realize that was kind of a half-stupid, half-smart idea. That’s how I roll. Another way I roll is a little policy called, “You don’t get to steal my money.”
I was told that after Commerce merged with TD Banknorth, they inherited TD’s policy of a $100 minimum balance on checking accounts. If you go under that, you get a $15 cycle service charge. About 3 months ago they started assessing it on my account. I went in. Commerce swears they sent me a notice about the change and I swear just as hard that I never got one. I get $30 back. Four days later I deposit enough to bring the account over $100. Safe, right? This month I got hit with another cycle service charge. Ready photon torpedoes.
I go in to the branch and ask the customer service rep to reverse the charge. She says she can’t because I already got the other fees waived and their policy is to only waive one. The customer service rep informs me that if your account goes under $100, even for a second, you will get charged a $15 fee. This is a many-layered fee onion, it seems.
I insist on the fee reversal. She says she’ll ask her manager. I see her stick her head in the back door from which up to now intermittent laughter has been emanating. She comes back and says he says no. I ask to speak to the manager. He comes over and I ask for the fee to be waived again. Naturally, he resists and go through the same thing about how they sent me the letter and it was my fault for not monitoring things and keeping the balance over $100.
I tell him, “I don’t have a problem keeping up with the account or with putting enough money in it. I have $135 in my wallet from depositing my piggy bank in your Penny Arcade. What I have a problem with is getting hit with fees I never heard about.” I then push the point that the last time we went through the fee reversal song and dance would have been a great time to tell me that unless I deposited more money right that second I was going to get hit with yet another cycle service charge. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this,” I ask. “Where is the consideration for customer service? All I’m getting is indifference on the part of Commerce and your employees. Is this a bank, or just a fee processing center?”
“We’re not a fee processing center,” the manager says, slightly taken aback. He tiptaps at the account, ruminating, “…I don’t understand why they didn’t tell you about this the last time you were here…”
Seeing my opening, an admission of fallibility, I lunge for it and say, “Me neither! Now we are one the same page! Now you see my problem with your customer service failure.”
He says, “Ok, we can refund the fee, but I have to warn you, because your account went under this month, you’re going to get another fee next billing cycle,” he says. “Why don’t you move it into the blah blah blah account? This way you only pay $3 a month instead of getting the cycle service charges.”
That does it. I’ve had it with Commerce. “A book doesn’t charge me $3 a month,” I reply, “for the favor it is doing me of letting me give it my money which increases its capital reserves and it can use to make loans off of. No, I tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to refund this fee, and then we’re going to close the account and I’m taking all my money out.”
“I don’t understand don’t you just get the blah blah blah account…”
“And who knows what other fee you’ll come up with tomorrow. No. It’s over. We had a good run, and now it’s over and I want my money back and I will put it in one of my many other accounts which don’t charge me fees just to put money in a box.”
“Ok, we can do that,” he says.
After I get my envelope from the customer service rep and get up to leave she shrugs her shoulders and says, “Sorry.” “That’s ok,” I say, “it’s just a business transaction.” Total time, 15 minutes. Definitely worth the $15 and avoiding getting charged yet another $15 and who knows what other fees down the line. On the way out, I have one of their lollipops, glad to be eating the sucker instead of being one. My only regret is that the hidden camera I was using this as a test run for didn’t work.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
- Examine each statement and bill you get each month for new fees and policy changes.
- If the level one person says no, ask for a manager.
- Even if they say the manager says no, ask to speak to the manager personally.
- When negotiating your position, insist, restate, and hold firm. Victory goes to the persistent.
(Photo: the prodigal untitled13)
More From Consumerist
-
Amazon’s Order Fulfillment: Efficiency Through Inefficiency
-
Rockport Sends Me Same Size Shoes, Different Sized Insoles
-
A Reminder: Clicking The First Link You See In Google Isn’t Always Such A Great Idea
-
Study: Amazon Has Cheapest Toys Online [Cue Other Retailers Scrambling To Cut Prices]
-
Target Sent My Package To The Wrong Address, Says It’s My Fault
Minimum balance requirement–fine. What I take issue with are the sneaky tactics that are sometimes hard to get around for the many, many people that don’t keep much money in their checking accounts and assume that if the debit card works there are funds in the account. And the banks’ assertion that this is not a fee-making scheme, it’s just lights-out on the financial industry on the weekends so how could your card possibly know how much money you have is just silly–that’s not how the world works.
At MOST banks, debit card purchases will go through if there are funds in the account, even if there isn’t enough to actually cover the purchase in question. The ratio of how much has to be in the account/how much will go through on a debit card varies by customer much like the limit that can be taken out of an ATM.
In addition, Wells Fargo (as well as many other banks I’m sure) clear outstanding items not in the order they come in, but largest to smallest. That maximizes the banks’ fee-earning capability. Dirty!
I’m a Commerce Customer and wasn’t aware of the fee either. I called the bank, took me till the FOURTH rep until someone could tell me what the minimun checking balance is until I am charged an “under limit or cycle” fee. OH, and I was told $200. Whoopsie.
BTW, all the tellers at Commerece Bank in my area are young twenty something (younger twenties) girls who stare at the passbook thinking “what is this….?”. Not to be sexist and nothing against younger folks (under 30 myself), but when they spend more time talking about American Idol and Dancing with the Stars then typing on the keyboard and talking to a customer (with at least 12 people in line between 3 tellers), you know something is wrong….
I’m on my THIRD passbook in less than 4 months due to them over-printing or mis-aligning the passbook in the printer. YOU (Commerce Bank, now TD) offer the service…is it too much of an expectation that you live up to it and train your employees properly? At least 1/3 of the time there is a SNAFU with the passbook….
@grebby:
Yikes. That’s horrible. But don;t let it turn you off all credit unions. Here’s the fee schedule for my credit union:
Overdraft Transfer FREE
Checking Account FREE
ATM Withdrawal Fee FREE
Bill Payment FREE
Courtesy Pay no such charge
Excessive Withdrawal No such charge
Early Account Closure No such charge
Account Research no such charge
Non-Sufficient Funds $20.00 (waived completely if not abused)
Deposited Items Returned/Recleared $10.00 (waived completely if not abused)
Card Replacement $5.00 (waived if not abused)
Cashier’s Check $1.00
Stop Payment $10.00
Inaccurate Address (returned statement) $5.00
Dormant Account $5.00 (per month)
Statement Copy $5.00 (first 2 are free and 24 mo.history available online free)
Check Copies $5.00 (per check)
TD SUCKS! I have my truck loan through them (their interest was low) and they’re completely unhelpful with even the most basic customer service inquiries. Their online payment system is a complete JOKE; straight out of 1995…clearly your $15 fees aren’t being used to improve the quality of their services.
@NYBanker: The issue is not that they charge $15 if you go under $100, the issue is that they apparently didn’t bother to notify anybody. As for “free pens & lollipops & dog biscuits”…ooh, you’re right, that’s so worth $100. I think I’ll run back to Commerce and re-open my account right now.
FWIW, my local bank has all the other fabulous “perks” you mention, and doesn’t charge that $15 fee.
Same thing here, no notification. In my case I went under, called and asked why I had the fee, and they removed it, no problem.
Commerce has been the best bank I’ve ever had.
I’m just really curious why so many people weren’t aware of the fee(s). Even their website states, “First year FREE, then only a $100 minimum balance.” (Certain states don’t get the fee at all.)
Is it possible now that the states that were totally free are getting hit with fees due to the TD merger thing? That would make more sense to me, because really, I was told about the fees when I opened my account 5 years ago. Hmmm…
Let’s say ‘Joe Consumer’ gets a new credit card offer in the mail. He reads the first few lines about a great interest rate and takes the deal. Fast forward a few months and suddenly the rate jumps to 20-something percent.
After talking to CS he realizes he didn’t read the fine print on the deal but he’s still pissed. He e-mails consumerist and for some reason they run the article, just for Joe to get berated by all the commenters.
This case should be no different because that $15 min balance fee has been a rule for years. Nothing has changed because of any merger. As stated previously in the comments, the OP…. oh wait… the EDITOR (That explains why this was posted) either had an account that was over the year freebie mark or was no longer eligible for a fee free student account due to age.
The terms of any account are disclosed when opening. I made the same mistake recently when my joint checking became 13 months old. But I never asked for the fee back since it was my fault I forgot about it. But apparently nobody takes the time to actually READ the paperwork they are handed when opening an account with people you are giving your money to. Like I’m just going to trust whatever the pre-pubescent CSR tells me.
I don’t mean to come off as a d-ck, but I just think its funny there are so many Commerce bashing comments on something so stupid. As a reader of the site for years, I have seen FAR more incredible horror stories on just about every other chain bank. This isn’t a ‘bank won’t give back 10K to little old lady’ article, but ‘someone gets charged a fee that they didn’t know about, but that’s been around for years’.
It just feels like if this was a submitted article it would have never been posted, or at least some proper research would have been done.
/rant off
@ConsumerAdvocacy1010: I work for Commerce (Harrisburg region) and let me just say, the passbook printers are crap. Obviously I haven’t seen your passbooks, but I doubt it has anything to do with the teller. No matter how you put it in the printer, it prints incorrectly and is never aligned right.
I applaud you! And I feel your pain, as Im actually going thru this cycle service charge saga of “TD bank”. I have been with commerce bank for many years and I have never ever been charged a ‘cycle service charge’…..until now. I literally looked at my account online 10 minutes ago and to my shock, Im charge a $15 fee for being 20 bucks shy of $100 from 2 weeks ago. I called TD bank, and I got it to be waived. Then he offered me the blah blah blah account. I laughed when I read your story!!! Im waiting for one more paycheck to be direct deposit, and then so long TD bank!!