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Overdraft options. *sigh*
They are a lot better since the debit card became separated from other types of transactions. So, you can have your account set up to pay into a negative balance to cover things like your rent check, while still having your debit card set to decline if the money is not in your account.
The problem in today's story comes with the third option: overdraw from another account, credit card or a line of credit (if you have one).
SC politely waits until she's in my office and sitting down even before she starts yelling unintelligibly at me. Seriously, I just could not understand her. I did get her to calm down and began to gather that the problem was that we'd "taken money from her savings without her permission". My mind goes at first to fraud, but after she throws her account card and ID at me, I pull up her account and discover that is not the case.
She set up her checking account to be able to overdraw from her savings. She then used her debit card for more money than was in her checking account... and we pulled $100 from her savings to allow her card to keep working and cover the transactions.
But she didn't WANT us to take money from her savings!
So I pull up the overdraft forms. We like getting signatures. And there is her very own signature next to the "please take money from the below account [savings account listed] in the event that my checking does not have the funds available to cover a transaction. If the source of the overdraw is a deposit account (as opposes to a credit card or line of credit) overdrafts will pull in $100 increments and charge a $5 overdraft transfer fee."
WHAT!!!! We charged her a FEE also!!!
...it degenerated here for a bit.
Eventually, it turns out that, according to SC, since she set her debit card up to decline instead of going into the negative, she also thought... it would ignore her other instruction to us to first try to pull available money from her savings?
This is actually not an uncommon confusion. When overdraft is not well-explained, some customers think the overdraw from their savings option only applies to checks and ACH withdraws, not to their debit card. For this reason, I refund her the $5 overdraft transfer fee and make certain the pull from savings is turned off for the future.
Does this take care of the matter? Oh no. No it does not.
See, she wants her $100 back.
The $100 that SHE SPENT on debit card purchases. Because she needed the money in her savings, and she should not be responsible for paying attention to her own balances or how much she is spending. Her card should have declined!!!
Refunding a fee, I can do. Disputing fraud, I can do. Giving someone an extra hundred bucks because they overspent... I guess I could have offered to put in a loan application, but something about the conversation made me think she wouldn't have appreciated the offer.
I did make certain to slowly and carefully explain to her all the other lovely ways her card can accidentally overdraw her account even when it's set to decline. Things like pay at the pump gas (we only hold $1) or restaurants who approve the transaction before the tip is added in, or rental ANYTHING where their are charges above the original estimate or delayed shipping where they charge the card so many days after the approval that we aren't holding the funds anymore.
I made certain to give her a very, very complete explanation. And noted her account to that extent. Because can't have her saying she didn't know when one of those things ends up making her owe us money.
They are a lot better since the debit card became separated from other types of transactions. So, you can have your account set up to pay into a negative balance to cover things like your rent check, while still having your debit card set to decline if the money is not in your account.
The problem in today's story comes with the third option: overdraw from another account, credit card or a line of credit (if you have one).
SC politely waits until she's in my office and sitting down even before she starts yelling unintelligibly at me. Seriously, I just could not understand her. I did get her to calm down and began to gather that the problem was that we'd "taken money from her savings without her permission". My mind goes at first to fraud, but after she throws her account card and ID at me, I pull up her account and discover that is not the case.
She set up her checking account to be able to overdraw from her savings. She then used her debit card for more money than was in her checking account... and we pulled $100 from her savings to allow her card to keep working and cover the transactions.
But she didn't WANT us to take money from her savings!
So I pull up the overdraft forms. We like getting signatures. And there is her very own signature next to the "please take money from the below account [savings account listed] in the event that my checking does not have the funds available to cover a transaction. If the source of the overdraw is a deposit account (as opposes to a credit card or line of credit) overdrafts will pull in $100 increments and charge a $5 overdraft transfer fee."
WHAT!!!! We charged her a FEE also!!!
...it degenerated here for a bit.
Eventually, it turns out that, according to SC, since she set her debit card up to decline instead of going into the negative, she also thought... it would ignore her other instruction to us to first try to pull available money from her savings?
This is actually not an uncommon confusion. When overdraft is not well-explained, some customers think the overdraw from their savings option only applies to checks and ACH withdraws, not to their debit card. For this reason, I refund her the $5 overdraft transfer fee and make certain the pull from savings is turned off for the future.
Does this take care of the matter? Oh no. No it does not.
See, she wants her $100 back.
The $100 that SHE SPENT on debit card purchases. Because she needed the money in her savings, and she should not be responsible for paying attention to her own balances or how much she is spending. Her card should have declined!!!
Refunding a fee, I can do. Disputing fraud, I can do. Giving someone an extra hundred bucks because they overspent... I guess I could have offered to put in a loan application, but something about the conversation made me think she wouldn't have appreciated the offer.
I did make certain to slowly and carefully explain to her all the other lovely ways her card can accidentally overdraw her account even when it's set to decline. Things like pay at the pump gas (we only hold $1) or restaurants who approve the transaction before the tip is added in, or rental ANYTHING where their are charges above the original estimate or delayed shipping where they charge the card so many days after the approval that we aren't holding the funds anymore.
I made certain to give her a very, very complete explanation. And noted her account to that extent. Because can't have her saying she didn't know when one of those things ends up making her owe us money.
Excuse me a moment while I reboot my brain. Wow. That level of dumb almost deserves a trophy.
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