Chase Bank Consumer Reviews - Page 6

Texas News

http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/Chase_accused_of_fraud_in_SA_card_division.html

A former assistant vice president for JPMorgan Chase Bank in San Antonio claims in a lawsuit she was fired after she told her bosses the bank had misrepresented the value of thousands of delinquent credit card accounts slated to be sold.

Chase knew that about 5,000 accounts had incorrect balance information, and that more than 11,000 accounts on which it claimed it had court judgments lacked adequate documentation showing judgments actually were obtained, former Chase credit card services “team leader” Linda Almonte charges in her lawsuit.

In some cases, she said, the judgments were against Chase rather than customers.

A spokesman for Chase, one of the nation's largest credit card issuers, said it doesn't comment on pending litigation.

The accounts in question were among some 23,000 delinquent credit card accounts with a value of more than $200 million that Chase packaged for sale, the suit says.

While Chase expected to receive no more than a few pennies on the dollar from a sale, it marked one of the largest portfolio sales ever for the credit card division, Almonte said by phone.

Almonte, who worked in Chase's collection litigation support section, said she was responsible for auditing the accounts. She took the portfolio of delinquent accounts off the market when she couldn't certify the accuracy of some of the judgments and balances.

(Accounts with judgments are more appealing to debt buyers because the court costs have been litigated and the buyer can pursue judgment remedies, such as garnisheeing wages or levying bank accounts, Almonte said.)

Almonte brought her concerns to her superiors, warning them the bank was violating federal law by intentionally misrepresenting the accounts, her lawsuit states. Nonetheless, she said she was told to proceed with the sale.

When she “refused to participate in Chase's fraud,” the lawsuit says, the bank fired her Nov. 30.

“I had to do the right thing even though I knew it wasn't the right thing for my family,” said Almonte, 39. “I'm still unemployed, and I have four children.”

Almonte's lawsuit, filed last week in Bexar County District Court, seeks unspecified financial damages. She's represented by John “Bruse” Loyd of Houston.

Institutions write off debts deemed uncollectible. They can sell the delinquent debt to collection agencies or debt buyers and then apply the money from a sale to their bottom line.

High unemployment has made it harder to collect delinquent debts, so buyers today are paying less than a few cents on the dollar for consumer debt more than 30 days past due, Almonte said.

Michael Cramer, president of the American Collectors Association of Texas, a trade group of collection agencies, expressed surprise when told of the allegations against Chase. Parties that sell debt make warranties that, if untrue, allow the buyers to return the debt and pocket a refund, Cramer said.

“I can't imagine them doing that,” Cramer said of Chase.

Anyone making fraudulent misrepresentations wouldn't be able to sell debt once the collections industry found out, he said, adding: “You're going to be out of business.”

Asked how Chase expected to get away with allegedly misrepresenting the portfolio of delinquent accounts, Almonte said, “Some of the conversations people had with me were, ‘We'll worry about it next year.'”

The primary concern, she added, was to sell the portfolio as quickly as possible to “offset the loss numbers” for 2009.

The card services division lost $2.2 billion last year after earning $780 million in 2008. It blamed the drop on a “significantly higher provision for credit losses.”

“Chase has grossly mismanaged its business, leading it to find ways to prop up its earnings,” Almonte's lawsuit charges.

Almonte said she believes Chase has sold some of the accounts.

Almonte's suit also claims the vast majority of the delinquent accounts with incorrect balance information had balances that were lower than what Chase represented.

Cramer, who's president of Arlington-based Dyck-O'Neal Inc., said any creditor providing incorrect account balances would be a concern for collection agencies.

That's because collection agencies typically notify credit bureaus of delinquent account balances 45 days after acquiring a debt, he said.

Reporting incorrect account balances to the credit bureaus is a violation of the Federal Credit Reporting Act, he said.

Consider myself to be pretty fair. If I screw up, I'll be the first one to admit it. Having said that, I have been a CHASE credit card account holder for 10+ years with a promotional 3.99% APR for the life of the loan. I have never made a late payment on this account and my credit score is in the high 700's. When Chase bought out WAMU, I thought it would be a good idea for me to set up bi-weekly auto pay from what is now a Chase checking account (formerly WAMU). After all, it would only take 1 day to post the payment since it is transferring within the same institution. Great. Not so fast!

They have a bi-weekly payment option for their credit card which for those of you who know the credit card game, it is advantageous from an interest perspective to split your monthly minimum payment into bi-weekly payments. Sure enough, I went this route and what a big mistake.

The payments posted fine for months without any problems but one day, I got a letter saying that my account payment was LATE and that my promotional APR on a substantial balance due would skyrocket almost by triple the APR. Frantically I called to ask what this was about and what happened was, the bi-weekly payments screwed me over.

What Chase does is nothing short of conniving. They have what's called a billing cycle that varies from your statement cycle. For instance, my statement cycle for January 2010 is from January 1 - 31, however, my billing cycle is actually January 7 - February 6. What this means is that my auto-payment that may post January 6 due to a scheduled bi-weekly payment plan will go towards my December 2009 bill and NOT January's, even though my due date for December 2009 has long passed. Confused yet?

Well where this royally screws me is that my next bi-weekly payment initiates 2 weeks later, only 5 days before my due date and this is only my first payment! Want to know what happened to my next bi-weekly payment? They hold it because it falls on a weekend or for what they call "processing time" and so I miss my January minimum payment because of this. Had I been forewarned by Chase during the setup of my payments that there were so many factors at play on how my payment is handled, I would not be in this mess.

The worst part about it is that I have made numerous calls and written numerous emails to Chase about this mishap and they won't budge. I have my auto-finance with them, credit cards, money market, checking and savings and still, this institution that reported record earnings last quarter (7 billion) won't work with a long time patron and honest customer like myself. Then they have the audacity to tell me, I have several options to choose from. Option 1: Deal with the rate hike! Option 2: Close your account for good and lose 10+ years of customer history (not to mention the negative effect closing an account has on your credit score)

CHASE...REALLY, DO YOU THINK THIS IS FAIR?

I own and operate a small business in Washington state. Over the past 4 years, I had done my business banking with WAMU which, unfortunately, got bought out by Chase. That is when all the problems started. For the past 4 years, I had deposited a check just about every month from the same place (I'm in the financial services industry so these checks came from my "back office".). Sometimes the checks were relatively small (a few hundred) and sometimes they were relatively large. In all cases, I have never had any problems in terms of the checks being ISF or "bouncing" etc.

As a matter of fact, I was a "regular" at the "WAMU" branch and my funds were always available to me the next day. Even though most of the branch workers remained in place after the Chase buy-out, boy did the customer service go dramatically downhill. All of the sudden my checks were put on hold and had to "clear" often taking a week or more.

I talked to the Branch Manager and asked, "How can it be that I've been a good customer here for 4 years, depositing checks from the same place every month for 4 years - and NEVER a problem - and now you treat me like I'm nobody. (Don't misunderstand - I'm not trying to be a big shot or anything... It's just that I felt like I was being treated like I had a customer who had been paying with a check for 4 years and I never had a problem with them and all of the sudden I tell them they have to pay me in cash!)

Then, the straw that broke the camel's back. I deposited a check - from the same people as always - on Nov. 4. They (Chase) told me it would take until Nov. 11 or 12 to "clear" the funds. I was furious! The check was only for $3500 but apparently, based on my past banking history with them, I was too much of a risk. Then, I had a few things that hit the account and without those funds available, I would be ISF and would get hit with a fee. I asked the Branch Manager if they could release enough funds to cover the overdraft and they declined. So, I deposited enough cash to make the account positive.

Well, a few days later, I noticed the account was again negative and it wasn't because anything came "through." No, the reason the account was negative again was because these thieves charged me over $100 in ISF fees which took the account negative again - because they would not release my funds - and now, I see where they have released my funds but not before they bagged me more ISF fees.

I am livid! This bank is very crooked. I used to hate Bank of America but doing business with them is a joy in comparison to Chase. Net result: I will close my business account with Chase and will (hopefully) never do business with them again. If this is how Jamie Dimon (or whatever the CEO's name is) thinks business should be run - where profitability is placed ahead of good customer service - then I want nothing to do with you or your lousy bank.

And, my advice to anybody doing business or contemplating doing business with Chase - think again! Find somebody else. Hate to say it but even B of A is better. Or, better yet, find a local bank that will treat you like a person.

CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA -- So I am a one man business, S Corp and have 2 Chase accounts under the WAMU name. One for my merchant incoming transactions the other for general operating transactions. Three weeks ago a transaction posted to my operating account that caused it to be overdrawn. Chase charged me $34.00 of each item that came in after that and then because 3 of the items were electronic they charged me an electronic return fee of $20.00 then another $34.00 overdraft fee because the $20.00 fee couldn't be collected. One of these overdrafts was for a $5.99 one for $10.88 purchase making the overdraft fee $88.00 on each item.

The interesting thing is my other merchant account had money in it that would cover everything. They though will not take money from your one account to protect the other one, only if you have either an additional saving account or an overdraft protection loan set up.

So now with what's posted and all the overdrafts the account is almost $600 negative with over $400 being overdraft charges. Being a one person business and needing to survive in this tough time I call customer service to see what can be done. I am basically told, "too bad, so sad we can't help you." I ask at that time how long I have to bring the overdrawn account current and was told, "AS LONG AS YOU ARE MAKING DEPOSITS TO CORRECT IT, IT WILL BE FINE." That if I ignore it they will close it after like 25 days or something.

So on Friday 8/21 I get some money in my merchant account and transfer $50.00 to the overdrawn one. Remember, these are both under my corporate name. Then on the 24th I get a check from a customer, put that in the merchant account bringing my balance to over $500.00 and transfer another $50.00 to the overdrawn account.

At this point I have bills that have to get paid. My business took a 4K hit this month and I am barely getting by. I now, buy some food, gas, dog food (22.00) and pay my water bill and my part time employee. This totals some $200.00 but I have $500.00 in the account so all is good.

On 8/25 I check my balance as I am getting more money in within the next couple days and can finally get the overdrawn account back to positive but no... Chase has, on their own, without my permission, taken all the funds but $5.00 out of my merchant account and put it in the overdrawn operating account still leaving me with a negative balance.

At this point I call them and talk with a customer service manager and am told that their computers automatically do this every night and if your account is overdrawn they will take the money from another account that has money to make it whole. THIS IS A LIE! There was money in the one account on Friday, and on Saturday and Sunday and Monday and it wasn't until TUESDAY that they did this.

So now besides getting almost $400.00 in overdraft fees from me on the operating account they now have taken all the funds from the merchant account that had I paid $200.00 worth of bills on and those transactions posted today leaving that account overdrawn $399.00 meaning I have another almost $200.00 in overdraft fees.

I searched Chase and WAMU's service agreements and nowhere does it say the bank can do that. And... if they can why not do it before they charge all the overdraft fees? Why?? I will tell you why! Because the banking industry are the worse crooks on the face of the earth. I am seriously moving forward on a class action suit against Chase about this and the other over the top overdrafts fee charges they instill.

My business has now come to a halt because of them. They have, temporarily put me out of business as I cannot ship product because UPS cannot charge my account for the shipping labels as they do, so I cannot sell product. It takes 3 days for my funds to clear the merchant company and get to my account, UPS gets paid upon printing the label. Chase has stopped my business and income to profit from overdraft charges and they're moving my money from one account to another without my permission. If you are interested in being part of this please let me know.

I have a airline miles credit card. I have had the card since 1986 or thereabouts. Until recently, it was my primary credit card. However, after finding it almost impossible to void the late fees, I stopped using it. Tonight, with $203 on the card, I tried to make a payment before it was late. But alas, I needed to have submitted the payment before 4PM EST so now the payment goes through tomorrow and I will have to pay a late fee.

I have had it with Chase. They tell me that they give me a 25 day grace period to pay my bill. That is not true. I listened to the wording of the customer service representative tonight very carefully. She said that the 25 day grace period starts when the bill is generated. She then added that it might take 10-14 days to get to me in the mail. Huh, this is 2009. It should take 2-3 days to get to me. I am guessing that they "generate" the bill, put it in a warehouse and mail it out after about 10 days. This bill usually arrives around the 10th of each month. They claim to "generate" it on the 24th. So it takes more than 2 weeks to get to me. Something very fishy there.

But it gets worse. If I pay my bill using Quicken Bill Pay, unlike every other vendor, my Chase bill gets mailed out as a check from Quicken Bill Pay rather than going electronically. That means that instead of being paid in 1 day, there is an automatic 5 day delay in my payments. Every single business I deal with except Chase can take an electronic payment. Chase cannot. They lack the technology to accept an electronic payment apparently. I think not. Instead they know that the extra delay creates a late fee windfall, so they benefit from not taking an electronic payment.

In summary, here is how the scam works: 24th day of the month: bill is generated, the next 2 weeks: bills sits waiting mailing, 7th day of the next month: bill is mailed out, 10th day of the month: bill is received, 18th day of the month: bill is due.

This means that I must pay my bill between the 10th day and the 13th day in order to not pay a $39 late fee plus interest charges. In essence, I get a 3 day grace period. This is an utter scam. I have put up with this nonsense for about 10 years now and I am so fed up with it. When I try and speak to someone at Chase, they are amazingly unhelpful. They know that this is a scam and they aren't allowed to do or say anything about it.

I have tried to resolve this so many times, but I never get anywhere. In the end, I only use this card a minimum so as to keep my airline miles. But otherwise I avoid the card and refuse any card that is issued by Chase. They are an evil company.

I write this not to complain but to offer information and facts in dealing with Chase. You make your decision from there. I was a faithful Washington Mutual customer for several years, kept a low Credit card balance, never late and always paid more than the minimum sometimes 4 or 5 times the minimal amount. My bank account was never in arrears nor had I ever had any difficulty with my balance.

Today I received a monthly statement from Chase which surprised me at first until I realized WAMU was recently bought out by Chase. I opened the bill and noticed a late fee of $39.00 but my payment was received 12 days before the due date. It was then I noticed an incorrect amount had been debited to my account.

I checked with the bank and a copy of the check and realized I had made an error when I did my bills. I recorded in my checkbook and in my accounting book a $200 payment but in fact in my haste to do the bills wrote the check for $50.00. The minimum payment due was $54.00 which with this error caused me to be short the minimum payment by $4.00.

I called Chase fairly confident that with my past payment history, being a good and loyal customer who simply made a $4.00 error could get this rectified. To my surprise I was connected to a customer service representative either in India or the Philippines. The representative I spoke with told me it was policy and he could not reverse this late fee since it was not clearly their error.

After speaking with him for several minutes and having his agreement that this was clearly a situation that should be reversed I asked to speak with his supervisor. I got the same story and proceeded to go up the chain speaking with 5 different reps saying they were either supervisors or managers and yet none had the ability to change this and I asked that if it was their error could they change it and the response was yes. Clearly the ability was there to reverse this charge.

The last person I spoke with told me that there was no one above her - that she was the top of the management team and would not allow me to speak with anyone further. Strange... as I did not realize the CEO of Chase was a woman in India sitting at the call center. Yes I did get names of those I spoke with. I was surprised that not only was I being charged 1000% on a $4.00 error but after Chase receiving $25 B in the first round of Bailout money because of faulty business practices and bad management, that they feel it is somehow ethicial to charge this percent of a fee.

In conclusion I would like to state that so far Chase has publicly stated that they were going to spend 1B to buy all bonds and an additional 5B in loans to several health care companies. They have yet to prove this nor have they accounted for the other 19B of yours and my money that they were given in a handout to save their company. I am no longer asking for accountability but demanding it. It may only be to some a $39.00 late fee but to me it represents all that has recently gone wrong with the Government, Treasury, Wall Street and the greed of many banks and corporations at our expense.

This is simply put, continual disregard for those of us that are paying their bills as well as our own yet we can't even get simple consideration for even the smallest financial error. Do you remember the line "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"? I can't do it alone. We the people need to come together and take charge. We must hold those responsible accountable. We have the vote, we are the consumer, we pay the taxes, we have a voice - let's use it! I'm ready, are you?

ST. CHARLES, ILLINOIS -- My husband was recently in a Chase branch doing routine business when the branch manager motioned him over and asked him if he would like to open an "overdraft protection" credit account, what with the holidays looming in the near future. "Sure," my husband thought, "couldn't hurt." So, he signed up.

Just a couple of weeks later, I decided that I was unhappy with my CapitalOne card, and that I wanted to transfer my balance to a zero-interest card with Chase, since they had been so good to me and my husband for four and a half years. But once I got the card in the mail and read the fine print, I was appalled: my transfer balance would only have 0% interest for just one month before the interest jumped up to over 19%! I immediately contacted the number on the card and had the account closed before I even used it.

A couple of weeks later my husband and I received calls from the bank telling us that our new credit card payment was overdue, and that they were stopping usage of the card. This, in turn (and unbeknownst to us) meant that they were drawing money from our regular checking account. My husband got online and tried to make a payment, only to find out that the account balance read "$0." But a couple days later, we got more calls, telling us that we now owed nearly $1000.

Astonished, my husband contacted our branch manager--the same one who had talked him into opening this "helpful" card--only to be told that the branch manager could do nothing until the following day when my husband could physically come into the branch. That night, the bank hit us with another $210 late fee, the cause of which was still unknown to us, for a grand total of &770 in late fees.

When my husband went in to speak to the branch manager, it was revealed that the account that was SUPPOSED to have been closed, never was; this was the account that still showed up as a zero balance for us online and has caused such great confusion. The manager said he would make phone calls to the Chase credit card people (which he never did), and see what amount he could give us back. The branch manager credited our account a measly $70 without verifying this amount with us, leaving us out $700 just a few days before Christmas. I was in hysterics, and it ruined our holiday plans.

We have since spoken with the District Manager, who insists that she cannot do anything for us since there is some kind of "government rule" that prohibits her or anyone from Chase bank from refunding us any money more than twice (they had already had to give us a refund due to bank error about 10 months earlier). So now my husband and I are out $700 because our branch manager decided that a measly $70 would make up for the mistake that his sleazy sales-methods employed in the first place. It will be a long and annoying journey switching banks since my husband and I do so much electronically, but I will be switching banks. Today.

NORTH OLMSTED, OHIO -- I was feeling sorry for myself until I read all the reviews on this site. I have a story as well. I had an Amazon card (Chase) and had an excellent history with them, with a $2,500.00 credit limit. One day, quite by accident, I noticed that they had raised my rate to 29.99%. When I called to ask why they raised it I found out that their risk management people do a random search of your credit history and based on that (not sure of all of the criteria they use) they raised my interest rate (even though I had excellent payment history with them).

When I asked them to lower the rate, they refused. So, I got super lucky and won a jackpot at a casino shortly after that, so I called back once again to ask if they would lower the rate. They refused once again so I paid my balance in full. A few months went by, I kept checking the account to make sure it was still a zero balance. Then they sent me a couple of blank checks, which I held onto, even though I knew I wouldn't use them because of the high rate I would pay on them. Shortly after that, we had heavy rains and our brick retaining wall at the bottom of our driveway (closest to our garage door), literally crumbled and fell down.

The city would have fined me, so I reluctantly wrote out a check for a down payment on the work, which was $1,800. When I went to look at my statement after I wrote that check (to see what charges I would incur for writing the check), I almost fainted when I looked at my credit limit and they had reduced it to $900.00 (without notifying me). Now I didn't have enough money to pay the landscaper who I had hired and paid a down payment to and who had started the job.

I called Chase and got more rude customer service people who were no help at all. They gave me a line of ** so I hung up and was now $900 short for paying the landscaper. In the end, I had to take out a second mortgage to pay the guy off. While I was at it, I paid off the Chase account, back down to zero. I checked the account every month to make sure they weren't trying to charge me some bogus fees and they didn't. Still mad at them for what I feel is deceptive practices, I decided to get my revenge.

They had an offer of 6.99% to transfer a balance (way better than the 29.99% my account normally charges) so I transferred a balance and have been paying 6.99% on it. Now, I am in a debt settlement program and they have to deal with my lawyer and will have to take a payoff. I recommend this to everyone who has credit cards. I will never use credit cards again. The games they play, especially Chase, is tiresome and should be illegal.

What a horrible experience with a company that I have been in very good standings with for years. I trusted Chase so much that when I decided to move my money to a more technologically advanced bank with more online account access, I decided to apply for Chase's checking and savings account. Not only did their online system fail me, but so did their customer service associates.

The trouble began at the end of the application process. At the page where you wait for a decision to come through, the site stopped responding. I let the page sit for over an hour afraid that if I refreshed it I would duplicate the request. Eventually the acceptance did go through and I received a confirmation that the two accounts had been opened and that I should be receiving everything in the mail shortly. I was not able to print off the required "customer signature card" though. I waited until Monday when I had access to a working printer to check in with Chase and see if I could get a duplicate of the customer signature card sent to me.

On Monday morning, I logged into my online account to get the phone number needed and there were a total of four newly opened bank accounts -- two checking and two savings. I can understand what happened and how duplicates could have occurred during the application process. That's fine. The issue is with the way Chase has handled the complaint so far.

During my first call, I spoke with a representative who was at first able to see my account and to see that it was "being worked on" because "they know about the duplicates." She then asked me for my credit card number. I informed her that I do not keep that card on me, so I was not able to give her that information at that time. She stated that my social security number and my address did not match up and that she could not access my accounts. I informed her that I have been receiving the credit card statements each month for over two years at my new residence with no problems.

She then transferred me to the credit card department who was not able to help me out with my bank account situation and offered to transfer me back. I was not able to extend the time I had to spend on the phone, so I hung up. Why was I transferred to the credit card department when I was calling about my bank accounts?

I called later on that same day to see if I could get help from a different representative. This representative was able to see my accounts, but would of course have to transfer me to someone else to help with the duplicate accounts being opened. I first asked about the consumer signature card and if I could get that at least taken care of. The representative told me that one would be included with the debit card for the account and to "not worry about it."

I was then transferred and that person had to transfer me as well. The third representative told me that because the accounts were opened on a Saturday, I would have to wait until Tuesday to close them and I could either call back or visit a branch to do so.

On Tuesday morning, I log back into my online account to find an email from yet another representative telling me that the applications would remain open for 30 days. If the consumer signature cards were not returned, they would then be automatically closed, but there was no other option for closing the accounts.

Until this point I was happy to work with Chase in resolving the issue and closing just the duplicate accounts. However, at this point I am requesting that all four accounts be closed. My current bank account was of course debited twice for the initial deposits that I authorized and I am now told that I have to wait 30 days for this to be returned to me?

I can't imagine how bad the customer service of this bank could get if there was an actual big issue with my account! I will also be closing my credit card accounts with them once they have been paid off... I too had them change my payment due dates several times during the course at just a few months in an effort, I believe, to raise interest rates and collect on late fees, which thankfully did not work. This is a real shame... Coming from someone who has worked in customer service for a company who actually cared about their customers... Their service is very, very lacking.

GARNERVILLE, NEW YORK -- I've been a Chase customer for a number of years now. To be quite honest, it is a matter of convenience. The bank is located in my supermarket which is just minutes away from me. Recently, for the Christmas holidays, I wanted to buy some gift cards which the bank had been advertising. A co-worker had already looked into it and said that Chase didn't charge any fees, and that the only thing to consider was that the card expired in a year. Finally, I was going to be able to buy some gift cards that didn't tack me with unnecessary purchase or "processing" fees.

When I went to ask a teller about it, she informed me that the cards cost $3.50 to purchase. When I asked why, she showed me that there was no fee for "qualified customers". Apparently, it was not good enough that I am a Chase customer and have been for years; I also had to have at least $5,000.00 in the bank (which includes checking, savings, credit cards, mortgages, etc). Had I tried to apply three years ago, it would have been a different story. But life happens and I am at a different place financially for now. That, too, is another thorn in my side.

Three years ago I managed to save quite a bit of money in my Chase savings account. One day around October, 2004, I got a call from a member of my Chase branch, telling me that if I deposit another EQUAL amount of money into my savings (I had at least $10,000.00 saved at the time) by November, that I would get an interest rate of "x", which is greater than what I currently had. When I asked what the current rate was, he replied, "Not too good", and gave me a number. That alone made me question why I should stay with this bank. When a Chase representative, himself, is telling you their rates aren't very good, you know you're in trouble.

Long story short, I am not Rockefeller and couldn't possibly deposit another ten thousand dollars in a few weeks, no matter what my "reward" would have been. I found it very insulting, actually, that a Chase representative would up my "not too good" rate ONLY if I managed to make such an increase in my savings; savings that took me a LONG time to save and certainly didn't accumulate in a matter of weeks. Knowing that their rates are terrible and trying to incite you to increase them by way of depositing more money (and DOUBLE the amount, at that), is unethical, imo. Maybe I am wrong and looking at this incorrectly, but I found it an insult.

Needless to say, when my financial situation changed, and not for the better, I found I was being charged all these fees. When I called the bank, I discovered that I needed to change the type of account I had so that I wouldn't be slapped with all these charges. I did so, but the fees didn't stop there. They just give you a new set of rules to abide by. You have monthly service fees of $6.00, plus you're only allowed four ATM withdrawals a month. Anything more than that and they sock you with a $3.00 fee for each withdrawal. They also charge you a fee for the check copy(s) they include with your statement.

Yes, I am still with the bank. I have a box and a half of checks I'd like to get rid of, and it IS convenient to bank where you shop. However they recently opened up a Commerce bank even closer to me a few months ago and I think it may be time for a change. We'll see.