Wachivia dormant account fees

[wolfigal]

After a divorce, we settled all our accounts. Our Wachovia joint checking account had a balance of $2.00 in it that I totally forgot about. Well here is how that $2.00 ruined my credit. A few days ago I get a letter from RJM acquisitions stating they bought my Wachovia account for $48.00...I was like WHAT ACCOUNT? When I called the less thatn helpful Wachovia, after finally getting a supervisor was told the $48.00 was "dormant account fees." Now I have never heard that they can keep taking fees out every month causing an overdraft??? Now, it looks like I bounced a check!!! To make matters worse, they "claim" to have contacted me but on their record had an address I lived at 2 addresses ago (the account is 3 years old!). How then could RJM have gotten my new address but Wachovia couldn't, hmmmm. The rude supervisor wound up hanging up on me stating "THE ACCOUNT IS SOLD!" How do I get this off my credit report...should I attempt to deal with the infamous RJM, pay the $48.00 or should I go into a Wachovia branch? I am furuious, because I had no clue that $2.00 would cost me this! I would have closed the account if only I knew!

Edited January 19, 2008 by wolfigal

[Sher]

Reminds me of a story

When my son was in elemetary school. A local small bank came in to his school and offered the kids a savings account. Once a month was "bank" day and the kids could bring in whatever money they wanted to deposit. My son saved about 65.00 in that account before he went on to Jr High. Fast forward a couple years and we get a letter from that bank that states your account has been closed due to inactivity.

Truthfully, we had both forgotten about this account, since we never got a statement in the mail and we had moved twice since the account was open.

Needless to say I was furious. I called the bank and talked to the branch manager, she said that they were sending out statements and they were being returned every quarter. She said there was a $2 per statement inactivity charge and a $1 charge everytime a statement was returned by the post office.

I asked how they found our new address to mail the inactivity letter too she said she didnt have any idea. I asked her why they would continue to send out statements to an address they knew was invalid, she said she didnt know. I asked her to send me a printout of all of the charges to this account, which she did.

Once I received the printout, I wrote a letter to the CEO of the bank and told him what I thought of them going in to an elemtary school, having innocent kids bring in their allowance to deposit and then systematically stealing it from them. That I found it amazing that even though our address had changed they never bothered to call and leave a message ( our phone number stayed the same). I got a phonecall a few days latter from some assistant to the CEO, and he was very understanding, I told him that I felt like going to the school board and notifying them of their scam. He assured me that it wasnt a scam, blah blah blah. Needless to say, my son had his $65 back within a couple days.

I know this isnt the same type of situation, but I just wanted you to know that it happens all the time to young children that dont even know they are being scammed.

 

You could try to write a letter to the CEO and explain that they had made no effort to find you and inform you. That worked for me. Hope you can get it resolved without pay the CA. GL

[walterg55]

You will find that a letter to the CEO of Wachovia is a total waste of time. Wachovia simply does not care. Based on extensive personal experience. Wachovia, like most big banks, loves its fees.

Edited January 19, 2008 by walterg55

[ehoez]

bump..

 

i have/had the same problem....

[jemini]

Wachovia Walk all over ya Thats my nickname for them

[tenuki]

I have the exact same problem, except I had $1 in my account and the amount sent to collections was $49.

 

The nuance in my case is my account wasn't dormant! Just two months after making a deposit and withdrawal, they started charging dormant account fees. According to their deposit agreement, an account is supposed to have no transactions for a year before being charged the dormant account fee.

 

I went to a branch and talked to a low level guy there, and he claimed that I needed to deposit a check or something with a signature. This is no where in any literature wachovia has published. Furthermore, that reason sounds like BS because it's ridiculous to think I could do a bank transfer of $1000 into my account every month and have it go dormant (I deposited by bank transfer, withdrew by debit card). This guy then calls the support line, and they say I was supposed to sign some letter they sent to say the account wasn't dormant, which they had sent. Again, this policy was in no literature they published.

 

I have never been to collections before or had debt problems, but here is my plan of action:

 

1. I recently checked my credit report, and nothing about the debt had shown up on them yet. I suspect something eventually will. So, even though Wachovia is trying to wash their hands of it by saying they sold the debt, I still will formally dispute the debt. Ideally, they need to reverse the charges and say that there shouldn't have been a debt in the first place. If there is no debt, the collection agency can go away by FDCPA.

 

The grounds of the dispute will be that my account was active by the terms of their published deposit agreement, and their fee was charged using unpublished policy to which I didn't agree. This constitutes a false debt claim, in violation of federal law (etc.). I will also mention filing complaints with the Fed, BBB, and seeking legal counsel to protect my financial record against a false debt claim.

 

2. I have sent a dispute verification letter to the CA (RJM Acquisitions).

 

3. I have read that the Better Business Bureau can have success resolving complaints with Wachovia.

 

The worst case for me would be to settle for a pay for delete with the CA and have Wachovia's charge off stay on my credit. I have no problem with debt or money, so having a chargeoff on my credit for an active account that wasn't even dormant is a gut punch.

 

Can anyone with more experience with this suggest a better course of action?

Edited January 19, 2008 by tenuki

[merkurfan]

DV RJM, see where that gets you..

 

Nice part about it is that RJM is the most friendly when it comes to PFD's and they tend to be very agreeable to them. So if they validate and the 1-2 punch fails you could just offer them 48 bucks to go away and delete

[wolfigal]

Oh! Are you saying that both Wachovia AND RJM are on my credit??? I have not checked my credit report! I just assumed RJM being a collection agency would be on it, but Wachovia too?? Now I am really sick about this..Question..how do I get Wachovia off my credit report if its there?? I wrote a letter to the CEO via PFB, I guess next course of action is the BBB..any other suggestions??

Edited January 19, 2008 by wolfigal

[tenuki]

Well, neither are on my report yet. But from reading up on it, Wachovia will have a charge off entry with a balance of 0 and RJM will have an entry for collections.

 

Much of the information I have read says you can't deal with Wachovia now that they have sold the account, but I think my situation is different since I should not have been assessed the debt in the first place. Wachovia violated their deposit agreement.

[Celo]

Thanks for posting this OP. I have an account with Wachovia as well, that I have not used in a while. So, I just checked to see if I was being charged any fees for the account. Certainly, I was for dormant fees. Mine you the account is a free checking account.

 

I asked to close the account. But because of now having a negative balance I can not close it. So, I will be charged again on Tuesday. Why? These are some freakin bastards. The CSR I spoke to claimed you can reverse the dormant fee. WTF? I bet that is some bull chocolate.

[tenuki]

^When was the last time you used it?

[KYBOSH]

You guys remember those stories of lost accounts that have been sitting untouched for like 100 years just collecting interest?

 

At first it started out with $10 but after a while there was like hundreds of thousands of dollars in there and some lucky heir got it...

 

You guys stories are starting to make me think those this (along with a lot of my childhood fantasies) weren't true.

 

Edited January 20, 2008 by KYBOSH

[collins135]

You will find that a letter to the CEO of Wachovia is a total waste of time. Wachovia simply does not care. Based on extensive personal experience. Wachovia, like most big banks, loves its fees.

 

AMEN to that!!

 

This is got me worried now. I left a dollar in some old bank account which I thought I had closed and pulled all money out of (over two grand so I thought i had all the money when i closed). I didnt do anything with the dollar cause I thought let them keep it. Wonder if it will show up years later for me.

 

Which i think is ridiculous. Why not just close the account and keep whatever money is in there? Why do they need to charge any fee and why leave an account poen that long anyways??

 

Unless you just want money and to mess up lives.

 

This is wacAcovia we are taking about.

[SuperG]

Wow I am shocked that Wachovia charges a dormant fee. Now I know the state regulates the time for an account to go to dormant status, but most of the time, when that happens, the bank just sends letters out, and then eventually it goes into unclaimed property to the state, but with now real fees on it. Also, in TX, Banks are not legally allowed to charge a service fee on a dormant account.

 

Also, to the other poster who talked about their kids in elementary school. I thought it was illegal to charge a service fee to a minor account. Not sure exactly what the law says, but that is what I have been told and I have read.

 

SuperG

[akaniks]

Bank of America did this on my secured card deposit. After closing my secured credit card you would have thought they would mail me back the $100 something in my savings account that backed the card. Instead they started charging a monthly maintenance fee until I called them and asked for them to send me a check.

 

What Wachovia did should be illegal! It's really sad what companies can get away with in this country.