Banking
My Beef with Fifth Third Bank
06/23/10 05:40 PM Filed in: Stories
It really starts with
their name. What genius in marketing actually thought
the prefix Fifth Third was cool? They apparently lost
their place in line for First Bank, and they didn’t
want to settle for second, so perhaps they decided to
go with some unique. But they settled for Fifth
Third. This is either an improper fraction (which
makes me cringe), or they were just too ashamed to
admit they were really the eighth or fifteenth
bank and wanted to say
make it more ambiguously.
The second time I heard of Fifth Third being stupid was with my girlfriend, Jess. When she created her account with them, they mistakenly assigned her Social Security Number to someone else’s account--very secure. When she called to get this fixed, she obviously had difficulty ... Because she was giving them a Social Security Number they didn’t have on file.
The third idiocy I witnessed from Fifth Third was with roommate, Dave. Over the summer, someone else used his debit/credit card, making significant charges to it, overdrafting his account. Naturally, these overdrafts lead to fees on his account. When he finally became aware that his account was in the red, he owed Fifth Third several hundred dollars. When he called to get this corrected, explaining that the original charges weren’t even approved by him, they refused to work with him.
This brings me to the fourth and final encounter I have had with Fifth Third Bank. It will be the final encounter, because I will be closing my account with them as soon as I get back to Ohio.
I live in Iowa. There are no Fifth Third locations west of Illinois. I only use my Fifth Third account when I’m at school in Ohio, and I use a local bank when I’m at home in Iowa. Never make the mistake of having an account with a bank that doesn’t have any locations in an area you live for even part of the year.
I left my Fifth Third account with little money in it at the beginning of the Summer since I knew I wouldn’t be using it when I was at home. I switched all of my online charges (PayPal, iTunes, Amazon) over to my local account and essentially forgot about the account at school.
Until last Saturday.
Last Saturday I received a phone call from Fifth Third bank explaining that I had a small overdraft charge on my account.
Me: “Okay, so, I need to deposit $5 into my account to cover the overdraft, right?”
Employee: “Oh no, you need to deposit $95 into your account.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Employee: “You have daily overage fees. You don’t live here in the Summer, do you?”
Me: “No, I’m not in the area. So if I deposit $100 into my account, these overage fees will cease, correct? Can I just give you my credit card number?”
Employee: “Oh no, we don’t take credit.”
Me: “You don’t take credit?! You’re a bank!”
Employee: “You could go to a Fifth Third location and make a deposit.”
Me: “Right, well, the issue is that I live about six hours from the nearest Fifth Third location, so what are our other options? Can I mail you a check?”
Employee: “Well, you could, but that will take longer and you’ll be charged more daily overage fees. You could make a deposit into any ATM with your Fifth Third debit card.”
I had a sour taste in my mouth, so I took this suggestion and got off the phone with the woman as quickly as possible. Needless to say, I was very angry, though it was half at myself and half at the bank at this point. The charge was from my Apple account, which I had switched the credit card on, but one charge must have been made to the Fifth Third account before Apple confirmed the new credit card.
It certainly was nice of her to wait until Saturday to inform me of this overdraft and overage fees--the funds wouldn’t even be counted as in the account until Monday, even if I could get them into my account somehow, and thus I would incur at least $20 more of overage fees.
I drove to four different ATMs. None of them allowed me to make a deposit into an account that wasn’t with them. My brother suggested ING Direct, an online bank that allows you to add multiple accounts from different banks and transfer funds between them. This is a great service, but unfortunately takes two-to-three business days to complete a transfer, and this was $30 more in overage fees. I wasn’t willing to pay that. I considered wiring money directly to my Fifth Third account, but this also had a fee of $30. Mailing a check would be a fee of $30 or $40 more dollars before the check arrived at Fifth Third. So I decided to call Fifth Third one more time--there had to be a way to get them to drop at least half of the overage fees. So I called the local branch where my account is held.
Me: “I’d like to discuss my options for getting these overage charges removed or at least cut in half. I’m obviously willing to pay the charge that initially deducted the money out of my account, but considering I was not aware of this charge and am not even in the same state as any of your branches, I am unable to deposit the money into my account in a timely manner, and I’m incurring more overage fees because of this. I don’t know what else to do.”
Employee: “Well, was the charge approved by you?”
Me: “I was the one who made the charge, yes, but I wasn’t aware it was being made to this account.”
Employee: “If you approved the charge, we can’t do anything for you.”
Me: “But why was my account even allowed to be charged if there was no money in the account? Isn’t that the entire point of the debit card? That it withdraws the funds immediately, and declines if it can’t?”
Employee: “The card also works as a credit card, and that’s why it allowed the charge.”
Me: “Well, if it’s a credit card, shouldn’t it not charge me until the end of the month?”
Employee: “No, it charges you immediately.”
Me: “But if it charges you immediately, isn’t that the debit card ... And then shouldn’t it decline the transaction?”
Employee: “It’s not possible for the Apple to be aware of your account balance, so they simply make the charge.”
Me: “Apple has to charge to your servers, so your servers check my account and respond to Apple accordingly.”
Employee: “Yes, but they don’t check your balance. Debit/credit cards never check your balance.”
Me: “Maybe yours don’t, but my debit/credit card from another bank declines purchased when there are insufficient funds--I know it’s possible. You’re my bank. You’re providing me a service. I’m entrusting my money to you. I would expect you to be protecting it for me.”
Employee: “Look, I can take $30 off the total overage charges. I can’t take anymore than that off.”
Me: “Fine. Then can you at least stop the overage charges for the duration of a mailing period if I put a check in the mail today and it takes three or four days to get to you?”
Employee: “No, you’ll be charged for those days.”
Me: “You’re really not giving me any good options.”
Employee: “Look, do you know anyone in Ohio? You could Western Union them funds, and they could make the deposit for you.”
Me: “Alright, I’ll try that. But I have to say, this is not the first time I’ve been horribly unimpressed with your services or willingness to work with me, and I will be closing my account as soon as I get back to a state that you’re located in.”
I Western Unioned $125 to my good Ohioan friend Gabe Pyle, and he is depositing the money into my account today. I have put a lock on my Fifth Third Bank account, and that lock will not be removed until I can close the account in August.
I understand that the mistake was entirely mine, and that I should have monitored my account more closely, even though I didn’t intend on using it all Summer. I accept full responsibility for the overdraft. It’s the daily overage fees that I wasn’t even aware of, and their inability to forgive even the ones over the weekends or in the time I was trying to get the money into my account but had no way to get money to them. Whether the fees were legitimate or not, Fifth Third was hardly willing to work with me (both in getting rid of the fees or in even helping me get the money into my account--they didn’t suggest Western Union until the third time I called).
I am thoroughly unimpressed with Fifth Third Bank, and I advise against ever working with them.
The second time I heard of Fifth Third being stupid was with my girlfriend, Jess. When she created her account with them, they mistakenly assigned her Social Security Number to someone else’s account--very secure. When she called to get this fixed, she obviously had difficulty ... Because she was giving them a Social Security Number they didn’t have on file.
The third idiocy I witnessed from Fifth Third was with roommate, Dave. Over the summer, someone else used his debit/credit card, making significant charges to it, overdrafting his account. Naturally, these overdrafts lead to fees on his account. When he finally became aware that his account was in the red, he owed Fifth Third several hundred dollars. When he called to get this corrected, explaining that the original charges weren’t even approved by him, they refused to work with him.
This brings me to the fourth and final encounter I have had with Fifth Third Bank. It will be the final encounter, because I will be closing my account with them as soon as I get back to Ohio.
I live in Iowa. There are no Fifth Third locations west of Illinois. I only use my Fifth Third account when I’m at school in Ohio, and I use a local bank when I’m at home in Iowa. Never make the mistake of having an account with a bank that doesn’t have any locations in an area you live for even part of the year.
I left my Fifth Third account with little money in it at the beginning of the Summer since I knew I wouldn’t be using it when I was at home. I switched all of my online charges (PayPal, iTunes, Amazon) over to my local account and essentially forgot about the account at school.
Until last Saturday.
Last Saturday I received a phone call from Fifth Third bank explaining that I had a small overdraft charge on my account.
Me: “Okay, so, I need to deposit $5 into my account to cover the overdraft, right?”
Employee: “Oh no, you need to deposit $95 into your account.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Employee: “You have daily overage fees. You don’t live here in the Summer, do you?”
Me: “No, I’m not in the area. So if I deposit $100 into my account, these overage fees will cease, correct? Can I just give you my credit card number?”
Employee: “Oh no, we don’t take credit.”
Me: “You don’t take credit?! You’re a bank!”
Employee: “You could go to a Fifth Third location and make a deposit.”
Me: “Right, well, the issue is that I live about six hours from the nearest Fifth Third location, so what are our other options? Can I mail you a check?”
Employee: “Well, you could, but that will take longer and you’ll be charged more daily overage fees. You could make a deposit into any ATM with your Fifth Third debit card.”
I had a sour taste in my mouth, so I took this suggestion and got off the phone with the woman as quickly as possible. Needless to say, I was very angry, though it was half at myself and half at the bank at this point. The charge was from my Apple account, which I had switched the credit card on, but one charge must have been made to the Fifth Third account before Apple confirmed the new credit card.
It certainly was nice of her to wait until Saturday to inform me of this overdraft and overage fees--the funds wouldn’t even be counted as in the account until Monday, even if I could get them into my account somehow, and thus I would incur at least $20 more of overage fees.
I drove to four different ATMs. None of them allowed me to make a deposit into an account that wasn’t with them. My brother suggested ING Direct, an online bank that allows you to add multiple accounts from different banks and transfer funds between them. This is a great service, but unfortunately takes two-to-three business days to complete a transfer, and this was $30 more in overage fees. I wasn’t willing to pay that. I considered wiring money directly to my Fifth Third account, but this also had a fee of $30. Mailing a check would be a fee of $30 or $40 more dollars before the check arrived at Fifth Third. So I decided to call Fifth Third one more time--there had to be a way to get them to drop at least half of the overage fees. So I called the local branch where my account is held.
Me: “I’d like to discuss my options for getting these overage charges removed or at least cut in half. I’m obviously willing to pay the charge that initially deducted the money out of my account, but considering I was not aware of this charge and am not even in the same state as any of your branches, I am unable to deposit the money into my account in a timely manner, and I’m incurring more overage fees because of this. I don’t know what else to do.”
Employee: “Well, was the charge approved by you?”
Me: “I was the one who made the charge, yes, but I wasn’t aware it was being made to this account.”
Employee: “If you approved the charge, we can’t do anything for you.”
Me: “But why was my account even allowed to be charged if there was no money in the account? Isn’t that the entire point of the debit card? That it withdraws the funds immediately, and declines if it can’t?”
Employee: “The card also works as a credit card, and that’s why it allowed the charge.”
Me: “Well, if it’s a credit card, shouldn’t it not charge me until the end of the month?”
Employee: “No, it charges you immediately.”
Me: “But if it charges you immediately, isn’t that the debit card ... And then shouldn’t it decline the transaction?”
Employee: “It’s not possible for the Apple to be aware of your account balance, so they simply make the charge.”
Me: “Apple has to charge to your servers, so your servers check my account and respond to Apple accordingly.”
Employee: “Yes, but they don’t check your balance. Debit/credit cards never check your balance.”
Me: “Maybe yours don’t, but my debit/credit card from another bank declines purchased when there are insufficient funds--I know it’s possible. You’re my bank. You’re providing me a service. I’m entrusting my money to you. I would expect you to be protecting it for me.”
Employee: “Look, I can take $30 off the total overage charges. I can’t take anymore than that off.”
Me: “Fine. Then can you at least stop the overage charges for the duration of a mailing period if I put a check in the mail today and it takes three or four days to get to you?”
Employee: “No, you’ll be charged for those days.”
Me: “You’re really not giving me any good options.”
Employee: “Look, do you know anyone in Ohio? You could Western Union them funds, and they could make the deposit for you.”
Me: “Alright, I’ll try that. But I have to say, this is not the first time I’ve been horribly unimpressed with your services or willingness to work with me, and I will be closing my account as soon as I get back to a state that you’re located in.”
I Western Unioned $125 to my good Ohioan friend Gabe Pyle, and he is depositing the money into my account today. I have put a lock on my Fifth Third Bank account, and that lock will not be removed until I can close the account in August.
I understand that the mistake was entirely mine, and that I should have monitored my account more closely, even though I didn’t intend on using it all Summer. I accept full responsibility for the overdraft. It’s the daily overage fees that I wasn’t even aware of, and their inability to forgive even the ones over the weekends or in the time I was trying to get the money into my account but had no way to get money to them. Whether the fees were legitimate or not, Fifth Third was hardly willing to work with me (both in getting rid of the fees or in even helping me get the money into my account--they didn’t suggest Western Union until the third time I called).
I am thoroughly unimpressed with Fifth Third Bank, and I advise against ever working with them.
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