Charged into Overdraft
Most of the time, I like my bank, Washington Mutual. They generally have pretty good people, and they do everything in a fairly reasonable timeframe. My opinion of them was lowered somewhat today when I discovered an email in my inbox labeled "New Overdraft/Non-Sufficient Funds Notice". Since I haven't done anything with either account in about two weeks, it seems kind of strange to have an overdraft funds notice.
As it turns out, they hit me with a $5 fee for going too long without having the minimum amount in my savings account. Well, the 78 cents in my savings account really isn't enough to satisfy that five-dollar charge, so it naturally went into overdraft. They have a policy of optionally charging you $30 for overdraft incidents, depending on how good a day they're having at that moment.
I've transferred money from checking to that account to cover it and hopefully bring it past the minimum amount. I just wish someone would've been a little more thoughtful and maybe notified me that I was outside of some kind mystical limit.
As it turns out, they hit me with a $5 fee for going too long without having the minimum amount in my savings account. Well, the 78 cents in my savings account really isn't enough to satisfy that five-dollar charge, so it naturally went into overdraft. They have a policy of optionally charging you $30 for overdraft incidents, depending on how good a day they're having at that moment.
I've transferred money from checking to that account to cover it and hopefully bring it past the minimum amount. I just wish someone would've been a little more thoughtful and maybe notified me that I was outside of some kind mystical limit.
Labels: money
posted by William at
9/25/2008 04:55:00 PM
5 Comments:
If you contact them, they may very likely take off the charge and the overdraft for something ridiculous like that. I mean, they won't take it off several times per year or anything, but I have found that by talking to them they can be reasonable when it is something like that.
Yeah, their mystical limits suck. And somewhere, in all their fine print, they tell you that, but then they also send little boring pamphlets every so often changing all that and expect you to memorize it or something. Blah.
If your savings account is set up the same way mine is, you need to have a minimum of $300 in your account, otherwise they'll charge you a $5 fee. You can get the $5 fee waived if you have at least $5 automatically deposited into the account every month (it doesn't have to stay there. You can move it back into your checking at any time). You'd have to talk to WaMu about them getting that set up 'cause I don't think you can do it with online banking. I had to go in person.
Hope that helps!
Well, no worries. WaMu got sold off.
vengeance is... mine?
I'm pretty certain that if I set up an automatic transfer like that, one or the other of the two accounts would end up overdrafting itself for that instead. At least then it would be my own fault, though.
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