Sister had a small checking account with her old address/mom's address. In December she wrote a check to close the account, account was then credited .41 cents interest in December but because her balance was below minimum they charged $5 fee, which drove her balance negative and then every week they charged $20 for NSF. This all happened while my mother was out of town and didn't receive the mail. They sent a letter in Jan or Feb saying if the balance wasn't paid ($108.59) by Feb 10th they would send to a collection agency which would add another 35% to the balance. She just got all her mail March 9th and hasn't contacted anyone yet. What is the best course of action she should take or is too late and she will just have to wait until collections calls or something? She is taking out a home loan later this year and has always had good credit. What will this action do or is there something we can do. Thanks in advance for any help!!!
Go into the bank and talk to the person in charge and explain the problem.Our you still banking there?If you are they should handle this or come to a settlement,but i wouldn't let it go to collections,it's a small amount don't take a hit on your credit report.Let's us know what happens
Do everything you can to stop it from going to a CA. It sounds like this was simply a computer system glitch that the bank should be able to rectify for you. Does she have any documentation from when she closed the account? If she truly did close it, then they shouldn't have reopened it to deposit any accrued interest. I agree with JJ...talk to someone in person at the bank and explain what happened. You don't want a mistake like this showing up on her credit report and negatively affecting her credit score right before applying for a home loan.
Problem was she wrote check for balance and didn't close the account, then got hit with the $5 fee for the account. The bank letter said they were sending it to collections Feb 10th, they did that because I just learned also in the stack of mail was a collection letter dated Feb 28th saying she owed the 108.59 (didn't include the 35%). And she was to send a check or a letter asking for verification in 30 days or they would assume she owed the money. I saw in another thread someone said to send a check to the OC and then a verification request to the collections agency and this usually works. Any thoughts? I also saw something about OC's being able to pull back the collections request from the collections agency. Just trying to figure out what sister should say or can request so this doesn't end up on her credit report when she calls the Bank. Bad situation since I'm sure if she would have known all this back in December/January the bank would probably have reversed the fees. At this point main objective is to keep it off the CR and just suck up the $109 as a learning experience. Thanks again for help!!
I would try to go deposit ~$120. After you have the deposit receipt with a balance of ~$11, then actually close the account.
While I don't have all the facts, that sure sounds like an unfair and deceptive business practice. If they can add $0.41 to your account and then charge over a $100 for the privilege, just sounds wrong. If I were in this position, I'd start with the bank (in person) and explain the situation and how these charges are just plain wrong. I would go up the chain of command until someone agreed and made it go away. If that didn't work, I'd tell the manager that the next time they saw me, it would be with the local news channel's troubleshooter and they could explain it to the TV news crew and the rest of the city. If that didn't raise an eyebrow, they be getting a summons for an UDBP suit or a call from the State Attorney General's office. Of course, I'd start off polite as though there's clearly been some misunderstanding and you'd appreciate it greatly if they could help you straighten it out. Hopefully it won't have to get ugly, but it's handy to have that in your back pocket for when it's necessary.
This was finally resolved: Sister talked to bank and they wouldn't do anything about the charges since she didn't close the account and the best they would do was if she paid the amount off they would write her a letter of explanation. So my mother found out who the bank president was small town bank) went in asked for him by his first name and told them how she had been a customer for years and how the reason she like the bank was because of the customer service and whatnot and that she had a decent amount of money with them. She also explained that although she didn't feel the charges were warranted she would pay them if they would pull back the collection. He didn't think they could but would check, they called later that day and told her it had been pulled back. So we'll check her credit report shortly and see what shows up. Hopefully it's gone or never made it there. Thanks for the replies and also the other info I found on the other threads talking about pulling back the collection.
