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 Concerning a Recent Incident at Your Finneytown Location
Posted Sat February 10, 2007 5:50 am, by Natasha A. written to Fifth Third Bank of Western OH
Write a Letter to this Company
I am writing concerning an unfortunate incident at one of your Fifth Third branch locations that I feel needs to be brought to someone's attention. I assure you this is the first time I've felt compelled to write such a letter to Fifth Third Bank, and it's regrettable that I find myself doing so now.
On Friday, February 9, at 6:30 pm, I visited the Finneytown Bank Mart (8421 Winton Road; Cincinnati, OH 45231) in need of making a withdrawal as quickly as possible. I had over $2,300 available in my account due to a couple of pending direct deposits that day, and I planned to write a check for $1,950 to Cash. The bank mart was fairly busy, but after waiting in line I was serviced by teller of whom I have no complaint. She informed me that she would need to get manager approval prior to cashing my check, and disappeared with my check and I.D. into the manager's office. The manager, Kathy Lynch, was assisting a client in her office at the time. After several trips between Ms. Lynch's office and the client service desk, the teller informed me that I would only be allowed to withdraw $1,000 that day, per manager's directive.
For reasons that I don't care to detail, I needed every cent of that money immediately. And as the funds were listed as "available," I was absolutely floored as to why I was arguing the availability of them. While good customer service may have prompted Ms. Lynch to step away from her client for a moment to explain her decision to me, she unfortunately chose not to do so, and so I was asked to step aside and wait for the opportunity to speak with her. I was told that she had been in her office for fifteen minutes with her client, and "should be done soon."
After waiting several minutes, I realized I had no choice but to leave; again, I hadn't expected this to be a lengthy process. The tellers at the service desk were now managing a very, very long line of clients, and so I knocked briefly on Ms. Lynch's door, entered, begged her and her client's pardon, and asked if it were possible she could write my cell phone number down and call me when she became available, as I had to step away.
Rather than agreeing to do so and minimizing the disturbance for her seated client, Ms. Lynch decided to pull up my account and discuss it then and there. To my complete amazement, after a moment or two Ms. Lynch said to me in front of her seated client, "Well the problem is your account was recently overdrawn." Granted, I have not read every word of Fifth Third's privacy policy, however common sense suggests to me, and should have suggested to Ms. Lynch, that mentioning such a sensitive account detail concerning one client's account in front of another is unprofessional, to say the least. Baffled, I was at first unable to recall the incident to which she was referring, and stated that my account had not been recently overdrawn. Then I remembered that it had in fact been overdrawn a week prior, when a check I had forgotten was deposited to my account. I came into the branch the next day and deposited enough funds to cover the overdraft and the resulting $165 of NSF fees, which I thought had settled the issue, and meaning to express as much I stated, "But that was a week ago." "A week ago is recent," Ms. Lynch retorted.
I again expressed my confusion as to why we were debating the availability of available funds, and Ms. Lynch's client at this point began to show her own frustration, and I apologized to her for infringing on her time with Ms. Lynch, further embarrassed by the entire situation. Ms. Lynch agreed to allow the check, but stipulated, "If this check causes the account to go overdrawn, I'm not reversing any fees." I assured her that it wouldn't, and even if it somehow did, I certainly wouldn't ask her to.
So my complaint is along several lines. First, if it was the validity of the deposit Ms. Lynch was concerned about, I would have been happy to explain the source of the funds, which should have put any question as to the funds' availability to rest. I have never deposited funds that were dishonored, and furthermore this was a DIRECT deposit, meaning the funds; source has no ability to first deposit the funds and then later demand them returned, hence the immediate availability. Second, if the concern is that there could be "checks out there," as Ms. Lynch stated, then I am certain I don't have to explain to you the fallacy of her logic. At ANY time, following any withdrawal of any amount, there could be "checks out there." Why allow any withdrawals at all? Why not demand to see the carbon copies within my check register to ensure I am responsibly managing my account with each withdrawal? Third, Ms. Lynch does not need to be told that private account information should be disclosed with discretion, she did not gain her position within the bank without being informed of this at some point, but she may need to be reminded that this applies to ALL accounts, even those without impressive balances owned by customers she considers dispensable. And finally, while I'm more than willing to pay for any mismanagement of my account, as evident in my quietly covering the recent $165 in NSF fees, I find being chided, embarrassed, and told the equivalent of "If your account goes overdrawn, don't come crying to me," to be a more costly correction than I'm willing to pay.
I will not threaten to close my account, as my experience with your employees has generally been fair. In most branches the employees are welcoming and extremely friendly. I wrote checks to Cash in the amount of $1,975 on January 8, 2007, $1062.50 on December 29, 2006, and $2,700 on August 21, 2006, all completely identical situations, all without incident. I would, however, like the assurance that I will never again have to argue the availability of my "available" funds, that my account information will be handled with more discretion, and that, in the future, I will be treated with the respect that I, if no one else, feel I deserve.
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