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Polite Letter Gets Bank Of America To Refund Overdraft Fees
Jenn's checking account with Bank of America recently had a policy change designed to increase overdraft fees, and it worked: sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning she was hit with 6 NSF charges going back the previous 48 hours, because she was about 15 minutes late transferring funds into her account the day before. Technically she had broken the new policy, but Jenn hadn't realized or remembered that there was a policy change and she was taken by surprise. She decided to try to reason with BoA's corporate office about the fees, and explain why she thought they were unfair.
Today, she let us know that her letter worked: "Just got off the phone with BoA Corporate in Boston. They're refunding everything! It pays to write."
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complaints
Rogue Charges Resurrect Expired Amex Card
Patricia closed her company's American Express Delta Sky Miles card six months ago, but the expired card unexpectedly sprang to life thanks to a supplier's accidental charge. American Express laughed off the matter, saying "this happens all of the time," adding that it's Patricia's responsibility to ensure that all vendors destroy her outdated billing information. More »
banking
Wachovia Opens Bank Account Without Permission, Starts Charging Fees
John can't understand how Wachovia charged his startup $12 in fees for failing to maintain a minimum balance when his company never opened an account with Wachovia in the first place. Apparently, his former bank manager decamped to Wachovia and, without his permission, opened a new account "to ensure certain money rates," whatever that means. John isn't mad, and the bank manager agreed to close the account, but John is a little worried because a collections agency has started calling and the account now lists $24.05 in fees. More »
good business practice
Redbox rents DVD movies via vending machine in drugstores and supermarkets throughout the country, and on Friday they announced that they'd found credit card skimmers attached to three of their kiosks. What's surprising is that they 'fessed up so quickly, and in a highly public manner—they've got the text "SECURITY ALERT" at the top and bottom of their website, and the email they sent to their members is detailed, forthright, and helpful, and reposted in its entirety—along with photos of sample card skimmers—on their site. Attempts at identity theft no longer surprise us, but a competent handling of the issue by a company is pretty amazing.
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Redbox Shows Businesses How To Properly Handle A Data Breach
Redbox rents DVD movies via vending machine in drugstores and supermarkets throughout the country, and on Friday they announced that they'd found credit card skimmers attached to three of their kiosks. What's surprising is that they 'fessed up so quickly, and in a highly public manner—they've got the text "SECURITY ALERT" at the top and bottom of their website, and the email they sent to their members is detailed, forthright, and helpful, and reposted in its entirety—along with photos of sample card skimmers—on their site. Attempts at identity theft no longer surprise us, but a competent handling of the issue by a company is pretty amazing.
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we're using the internet
National City Mortgage Company Can't Help You Access Your Account
Reader Kevin writes in with one of those stories that makes you feel like pulling your hair out. He can't access his online account with National City and they can't help him. More »
privacy
Identifight Tells You What Sites Your Email Address Is Publicly Linked To
Matthew wrote in to complain about a new website called Spokeo, which sounds like a stalker's dream: it sucks up all the entries in your address book, then returns a Big Brothery smorgasbord of all the publicly accessible accounts and services linked to each email address, along with updates any time something happens. It might surprise you to see just how easy it is for someone to assemble a picture of your Internet footprint with only an email address.Don't like the sound of that? Luckily for you, someone has already been inspired to follow Spokeo's model and create a tool—Identifight—that lets you track your own email address to see what shows up, so you can patch up privacy leaks. More »
macy's
Macy's Keeps Lowering Shopper's Credit Limit Without Warning
Trey is upset. Four times in the past year, Macy's has reduced the credit limit on his card without advance notice, even as his card membership level keeps going up. (Apparently he really
missing
"I Lost My Deposit Slip, And PNC Says There's No Record Of My Deposit"
Nicholas wrote in with a scary problem: his paycheck, which he deposited at his local branch of PNC on Saturday, never showed up in his bank account. The teller seemed to have difficulty processing the deposit, but the slip he gave to Nicholas showed the check had been processed. In the days that followed, Nicholas lost his deposit slip and the only proof he had that the check ever went into his account. Now the bank is telling him it can't help him without the slip, and Nicholas is wondering where the hell his money went.More »
checking
You'd Better Know Your Balance, Because WaMu Certainly Doesn't
"Keep track of your bank balances!"—pretty much every week on Consumerist either we or our readers say something like this. Now a reader writes in with a perfect example of why it's necessary, because apparently WaMu is incapable of keeping an accurate balance listed even after a week has passed.More »
alerts
Is HSBC Straining Under An "Unprecedented" Wave Of Fraud Activity?
If you're an HSBC customer, check your account, as there may be a wave of fraudulent activity hitting your bank. Two days ago we wrote about the guy in the U.S. who discovered his account had been drained by someone in Bulgaria. Later that day we received an email from Emily in NYC who was having similar problems, only her fraud-buddy was in California and Canada making withdrawals on her account.Emily's fiancé wrote back to us today with an update, and according to Emily, the HBSC Fraud Investigator who spoke to her "said that their fraud department was so overwhelmed, it was 'still in the developing stage of how we're going to handle' it. I asked if she knew how many customers were affected and she stated 'We don't even know.'" More »
bullying
Snapfish Will Delete Your Account Unless You Buy Prints Now
Snapfish is threatening to delete Jim's account unless he orders prints within the next 10 days, which is odd because Jim hasn't uploaded photos to Snapfish. Read their weird threatening sales pitch, after the jump. More »
irony
Bad Customer Service From A Customer Service Solutions Provider. What?
What part of "CANCEL THE MONTHLY LEASED LICENSE NOW" did customer service solutions provider Kayako misunderstand? Reader Chance's request wasn't unexpected. He tried to cancel his account three times and switched service providers before Kayako decided to renew his lease and issue a new bill. The full debacle, inside. More »
dirty tricks
Capital One Won't Really Close Your Credit Card, Will Secretly Continue To Bill You
When Capital One "closes" your credit card account, they'll continue to allow automatic withdrawals even though the account is closed. But they won't send you a statement—you know, because it's closed!—so that you'll end up with late fees. Quenten experienced this first hand when he closed his account recently, and now Capital One has sent his account to collections over a $38.00 late fee for two 38-cent charges that he never knew about. More »
credit crunch
Online Bank Cancels Cards On "Risky" Customers
Egg, a Citibank-owned online bank in the UK, announced this past weekend that it's canceling the accounts of 161,000 of its customers after "conducting a one-off, extensive risk review." The future ex-customers will be able to pay off their balances according to current agreements, but in a little over a month the accounts will be deactivated.More »
cellphones
Virgin Mobile Can't Seem To Close Dead Woman's Account
Rachel's stepsister passed away last April, but when she called to cancel her pre-paid mobile account Virgin told her that instead of sending in a death certificate, she should just shut off the phone and ignore it. After 90 days of inactivity, it would automatically be canceled. "I asked if they wouldn't take a death certificate to close the account, but I was assured that it would be faster to simply let the account run out." Instead, they added some sort of extra minutes promotion to the account that extended it to the present, so ten months later, it's still active. More »
errors
Dreamhost Is "Very Very Sorry" For $7.5 Million Billing Error
Dreamhost would like you to know that its very very sorry for accidentally billing its customers $7.5 million it wasn't actually owed. You see, someone typed 2008 when they really meant 2007 and their billing system decided to charge all of their customers in advance for the entire 2008 calendar year. This included debiting huge amounts of money from people's checking accounts and all the "worst possible scenario" situations you could possibly imagine. More »
rumors on the internets
Shenanigans With Chase Credit Cards?
Anyone else get a call from Chase about their credit cards?I thought I would pass along a problem I ran into today. I received a couple phone calls from Chase Bank fraud department concerning 2 credit cards I have with them (Amazon Visa and Chase Freedom Card). They reported (in a separate call for each card) that both cards are suspected of being compromised and that they are being closed.More »
