Sean is accusing Wachovia of using tricky online transaction posting that makes it difficult to tell when you’re in danger of slipping into the red. He says that although his account never appeared to be overdrawn, but he was still hit with overdraft charges thanks to funny accounting. He writes:

Wachovia’s found a new way to get overdraft fees. You purchase something today (say, Feb 12). They deduct the money today. But the item won’t show up on your purchase history for 2 to 3 days. So you can think you have money. Problem is, Wachovia will show you only the dates the payments “cleared”, not the dates the money was withdrawn from your account. But they overdraft/fee you based on the date of withdrawal, but you’re not privy to that information. So everything will look good on your end, you appear to have money, but you can in fact go negative and overdraft but Wachovia’s system will never show you actually going negative (see link above).

I got overdraft fees but my account never *EVER* showed going negative. Ever. Yet, according to them… I did (and by their system, I was in fact overdrawn) but the information they presented to the consumer? It never showed me once go over.

Wachovia stated that if you do a same day cash transfer it would automatically override any overdraft fees (so long as you stayed positive), but it didn’t. And Wachovia would only refund 50% of the overdraft fee that they claim I shouldn’t have gotten.

Wachovia customers, as well as those with other banks, has this happened to you?

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