The $500 checkbox and meritrust jerks

Rant warning. 

I try to avoid ranting too much, but, well, this has been the big issue dominating the week.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, the credit union where I’ve had my primary checking account for the last 7 years is really lacking in the customer service skills. To the point where they can’t even let you make a deposit in cash unless you have exact change, or have them make change for you first as a separate transaction. 

I probably should have gotten my clue then and walked away. But I didn’t. 

 

So late last month, I messed up. 

On my electric bill, when paying online, they have my checking account info saved, so it defaults to paying through the bank. I have to check a box to change it to pay through my unemployment account, or make a transfer from my unemployment to my checking. 

I forgot to do so. Entirely my fault. 

 

So, the bounced check fee at meritrust is 32, the electric company charges 30. $62 for a mistake makes for an expensive mistake, particularly when unemployed, but it was my mistake, so I expected to be paying it.

 

If only that was the end of the story.

As of currently, the fees stand at $478! (And that’s without them letting the payment go through.) And, they keep adding up, sometimes by $100 per day!

And there is nothing I can do to stop them. 

 

At first, I assumed that the electric company was the one putting it through repeatedly, as the bank does not list what company the refused transaction is from. So I dealt with them, paid the bill and their fee at one of their payment centers in cash as required, and thought all was taken care of. 

But the fees kept coming. So I called meritrust. And got told really that there wasn’t anything they could do about it. 

At this time, the fee was about 130 or so. So I basically sighed, figured it was over, and tried to figure out how to budget around it.

 

Then the letters came. More of them. The fees hadn’t stopped, even though the electric company had been taken care of. 

The next day a statement finally showed up… the first time I’d gotten to see anything but that it was an NSF fee. As it turned out, there were 3 transactions with my debit card that were pending still and not through yet before the electric bill hit. 

One for 22, one for 15, and one for 3.17 cents to kinkos for resumes.

None of which got paid, and all of which keep getting put through again and again and again and again with the electric one.

 

So instead of 3.17 plus 32 for resumes, its well over 103.

So I went into meritrust in person. 

The first guy couldn’t get my account to come up on his computer.

Next lady had to call someone. Then get transfered to someone else. And to a third person.

 

Third person wanted to talk to me. So she tells me that because I originally approved the transactions, they are federally regulated, and they aren’t allowed to block them from coming through.

So I asked if there was any way to block the fees. Even if they have to let them come through, its still their bank who is charging me 500 in fees when it does. (None of the transactions were paid, the balance is pure fees, plus they pulled out the money from my savings.)

 

Her response was that the only thing they could do would be to close the checking account, and create a new one. Which I was fine with. 

But there was a catch… she could only close the account if I paid the fees in full. 

Gee, yeah…. every unemployed person has more than twice their check amount sitting around at home to deposit. 

So I point blank asked how she could work with me on it. And she said she could cut them down to 200 if I were to make a payment to show an effort to pay, and could get her supervisor to sign off on changing the account with that. I agreed. She got my cell number, and told me she would call me back after it was completed.

So I made a 30 payment, as I only had 37 on my unemployment account at the time. And I’m less than a mile from the credit union when she calls back to tell me that her supervisor decided not to approve, but that maybe I could take out a loan for the amount. I pointed out that without a job currently, there was little chance of my being approved, and was told to find a cosigner.

 

Now when my stepdad had a car loan with them, it was for 24.6%! So high he refinanced through someone else almost immediately. 

So basically, if I give them 500 in profit, plus interest on 500 for however long, they will do me the favor of not continuing to charge fee on top of fee on top of fee for their debit card continuing to put the transactions through, and open a new account for me. As if I’m going to want to still do business with them after that?

I’m thinking they probably programmed their cards to create this setup intentionally.

 

But, basically, to me it means that instead of them getting 230 in profits and keeping a 7 year customer, they will get just the 30, the extra pain of trying to collect after they have finally given up and closed my account anyway for being so far in the red, and I’ve applied for a new local account elsewhere and will make sure to tell anyone I know who is considering using meritrust about my experiences.

 

I’ve got medical bills on my credit report anyway so it’s not like it hurts me much to have worse credit. And if/when they decide to sue, the judge really can’t be any worse about it than meritrust is being currently. And considering I have documentation that the electric bill had been paid before some of the retries, and that I’ve tried to close the account and been refused, I’m thinking there’s probably more of a shot of working with me than meritrust.

 

Yes, I made the original mistake. But $500 for a single checkbox being missed? And still growing every day? 

Gotta love companies who are jerks.