Refund the Money Stolen from My Family, Bank of America

Oversight or not its still an overdraft of an account and fees do
accumulate when this happens.

This is not something that BOA caused, although you want to believe
they do badly.
The only reason you took your father in law with you was because you
figured they would listen to a man.

You act very meek in the beginning of the letter and then at the end
you use stronger tones and say how you have gone to the BBB, consumer
affairs, etc. They will not help you on this because BOA did nothing
wrong.
Its your responsibility to keep a balanced account.

One burned twice shy...many people have overdrawn their accounts but
you learn to keep tabs and not play roulette with checks written. No
matter how little the amount you still have to have monies in your
account to cover these expenses.
And the reason they credited you with $70 was because it was probably
the first time this had happened. Now you want more because you feel
that by them doing this favor for you, they are admitting guilt. They
were being accomodating to a customer... you should be thanking them
instead of trying to run them over the coals for this.

They did not steal the money, they charged you fees in accordance with
the terms and conditions you agreed to when you opened the account. I
understand it was an oversight, most of us have had the same sort of
oversights and got charged fees.

If money is that tight, you need to monitor your account closely. You
cannot rely on online banking or the balance by phone, you need to
maintain a check register. If math is not your thing (it's not mine)
you can use an excel spreadsheet to do this.

You can contact all the agencies you want but the bottom line is the
bank did nothing wrong. You might be better served by finding a
credit union. They tend to be more forgiving.

Most, if not all, banks have the same policies and procedures: high
overdraft fees, a policy of checks taking days to clear, etc. I have
also found out that calling the 1-800 general customer service line of
a bank will usually give you more options than going to the bank in
person. They seem to have more authority to make decisions. (I don't
know why.)

If this was a one-time mistake, BoA might be willing to refund some
(but not all) of the fees. You may have to fight them, as Adam below
said, but at least you can recoup some of your loss.

But you should know that, should this happen again, they will probably
be less willing to refund anything. Oversight or not, banks have the
right to charge these high overdraft fees. Until something is done
about it, you can't go unaware of bank policies until it's too late,
as you have found out.

Im sorry, I am having a hard time even understanding what the problem
is..is it that you didnt know a check takes time to clear? Checks
are not availible to draw on right away, I know this can sometimes
suck, but it is good lesson to learn early.

Your shock and indignation tell me you've never before faced NSF fees.
That's actually a good thing -- most of us experience those when
we're young and new to checking accounts and spending and budgeting
our money. Sounds like you made an honest error and it's costing you
plenty. I wish the bank would have cut you slack if this had never
happened before, but they're not required to.

Personally, I'd ask to borrow money from a trusted, close family
member and then get my checking account squared away, and then get on
a payment plan with that relative. But not everyone wants to do that,
or has relatives who are able and willing to help.

I predict that once your account gets cleared up, you'll never lose
track of your checking balance again (using the register, you never
have to worry about when debits clear). I'm sorry this lesson was so
harsh. Good luck to you in bouncing back.

You agreed to their terms when opening the account. Its your error,
chalk it up as a lesson learned and pay the price.

While it was my fault, they then went ahead and charged me SIX
overdraft fees for transactions that were pending. The pending
transactions were covered since they put a hold on the money. I went
back and forth through email with them for about 2 weeks. They
finally got sick of me and just refunded it all back. You may want to
try that.

If someone stole something from me, I'd call the police.

I'm not sure anyone stole anything from you. You made an "oversight"
and it cost you a lot of money.

What happened is in accordance with the policy set forth in the
agreement you signed when you opened the account. You say you were
not "aware of" what would happen, but it shouldn't have come as a
surprise.