Service Announcement
To those thinking about switching to Wachovia...take my advice...Don't!
Let me begin at the beginning:
Le Beau and I moved to Lower Alabama...and if your thinking Mobile...think lower. Where our wonderful bank Suntrust does not exist down here but we do have such banks as Regions , Wachovia, and Amsouth. Now I used to have Wachovia back when I was in Athens and I loved it. They seem to really have it together...well to be honest, they don't anymore.
See, we started out poorly when we were informed that the bank has a Right, which they abuse often, where they can hold checks. Now a three day hold not a big deal...but a TEN day hold. You might as well hang on to it til my next payday...which you just happened to have done. Now let's see,"what happens when you put a hold on a check and don't tell the user til the day before the check is going to clear?" That's right, you bounce a check...or 10. Now they are accrueing fees, and sucking up as much as your paycheck as they can before they send a "polite", computer generated and difficult to interpret, letter stating that there's a problem with your account. Seems every communicay with this bank seems to go into a Twilight Zone style void where you wont' receive them until 2-3 weeks after they would have been revelant to handle.
Basically since opening the account, we have to keep a daily watch on it to make sure that Wachovia doesn't go walk about with our monies. Then the kicker happened. We had a 10 hold put our check without even being informed. Then they proceed to accrue no less than $600 in fees, before we even get to make good on the checks themselves. Did you know the average check gets run twice within the course of 5 days? I do now, thanks to Wachovia. So we call the National line, they can tell us nothing. Nope, no idea why that hold was put on it. Nope, not going to help you with any information at all, and my supervisor thinks you smell funny from over the phone and refuses to talk to you as well. *sigh* So we go to the local branch in Gulf Shores, yes we are that low in lower Alabama, and the woman in a not so polite way says "tough titties". Now this is the bank where the check was deposited, and she refuses to do more than tap a couple of keys on the keyboard and shrug. Now at this point Le Beau and I both are irate, as our entire bank account was dwindled down to nothing more than a shrug and it sucks to be you attitude. So basically I tell the woman, thank you for nothing and obviously I need to go to a real bank...you know one where they actually have working software that tells it when it has money in the account. (Course I missed explaining this part, but in short the money was in the actual account the day after we deposited and the hold was not removed from the account.) Grumbling, and irate we leave. At this point I'm "damn them all and pull the account". But Le Beau wants to give them another chance, he's got such a big heart...you gotta love it.
Anyway, we go to the other local branch, Foley and less than 10 miles from the other one. Here we meet Suzanne who proceeds to get on the phone and find out why the hold was put on. Then talks to us because she realizes we are truly upset as there was no reason for the hold in the first place. Then she works with us on the fees, and even writes letters to the people who bad checks went to to explain that it wasn't our fault but that an erroneous hold had been put on our account and that could they please waive the bad check fee as it was there bad and not ours. So you think everything's fine, right? That the story ends there....but no.
Today we got a letter in the mail today, basically saying that Wachovia is reserving the right to close our account because we used "foul or inappropriate language to one of their employees". Now get this, we never did!! Now matter how angry and upset we got, we never devolved into poor and vulgar language (and to be quite honest, we had every right to, don't mess with someone's money). So in essense, all the good feelings we had with dealing with Susanne were erased today cause someone didn't get their facts straight, and sent a veiled threat to us so to make sure we act like good little automatons.
So this is a service announcement...Don't let you be next!
Go to a real bank, and not Wachovia.
Let me begin at the beginning:
Le Beau and I moved to Lower Alabama...and if your thinking Mobile...think lower. Where our wonderful bank Suntrust does not exist down here but we do have such banks as Regions , Wachovia, and Amsouth. Now I used to have Wachovia back when I was in Athens and I loved it. They seem to really have it together...well to be honest, they don't anymore.
See, we started out poorly when we were informed that the bank has a Right, which they abuse often, where they can hold checks. Now a three day hold not a big deal...but a TEN day hold. You might as well hang on to it til my next payday...which you just happened to have done. Now let's see,"what happens when you put a hold on a check and don't tell the user til the day before the check is going to clear?" That's right, you bounce a check...or 10. Now they are accrueing fees, and sucking up as much as your paycheck as they can before they send a "polite", computer generated and difficult to interpret, letter stating that there's a problem with your account. Seems every communicay with this bank seems to go into a Twilight Zone style void where you wont' receive them until 2-3 weeks after they would have been revelant to handle.
Basically since opening the account, we have to keep a daily watch on it to make sure that Wachovia doesn't go walk about with our monies. Then the kicker happened. We had a 10 hold put our check without even being informed. Then they proceed to accrue no less than $600 in fees, before we even get to make good on the checks themselves. Did you know the average check gets run twice within the course of 5 days? I do now, thanks to Wachovia. So we call the National line, they can tell us nothing. Nope, no idea why that hold was put on it. Nope, not going to help you with any information at all, and my supervisor thinks you smell funny from over the phone and refuses to talk to you as well. *sigh* So we go to the local branch in Gulf Shores, yes we are that low in lower Alabama, and the woman in a not so polite way says "tough titties". Now this is the bank where the check was deposited, and she refuses to do more than tap a couple of keys on the keyboard and shrug. Now at this point Le Beau and I both are irate, as our entire bank account was dwindled down to nothing more than a shrug and it sucks to be you attitude. So basically I tell the woman, thank you for nothing and obviously I need to go to a real bank...you know one where they actually have working software that tells it when it has money in the account. (Course I missed explaining this part, but in short the money was in the actual account the day after we deposited and the hold was not removed from the account.) Grumbling, and irate we leave. At this point I'm "damn them all and pull the account". But Le Beau wants to give them another chance, he's got such a big heart...you gotta love it.
Anyway, we go to the other local branch, Foley and less than 10 miles from the other one. Here we meet Suzanne who proceeds to get on the phone and find out why the hold was put on. Then talks to us because she realizes we are truly upset as there was no reason for the hold in the first place. Then she works with us on the fees, and even writes letters to the people who bad checks went to to explain that it wasn't our fault but that an erroneous hold had been put on our account and that could they please waive the bad check fee as it was there bad and not ours. So you think everything's fine, right? That the story ends there....but no.
Today we got a letter in the mail today, basically saying that Wachovia is reserving the right to close our account because we used "foul or inappropriate language to one of their employees". Now get this, we never did!! Now matter how angry and upset we got, we never devolved into poor and vulgar language (and to be quite honest, we had every right to, don't mess with someone's money). So in essense, all the good feelings we had with dealing with Susanne were erased today cause someone didn't get their facts straight, and sent a veiled threat to us so to make sure we act like good little automatons.
So this is a service announcement...Don't let you be next!
Go to a real bank, and not Wachovia.