![](\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/wachovia-thumb-158x104-36947.jpg\")
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Jared thought he had enough money in his Wachovia checking account to cover a mini-spending spree, but he found out soon after that he’d racked up big-time overdraft fees. Now he’s not sure whether or not he should pay Wachovia the money he owes or just cut and run and start over with a new account somewhere else.<\/p>\n
He writes:<\/p>\n
At the beginning of this month I made the mistake of going to the mall with a friend and shopping. I had checked my Wachovia Checking balance online and it read 70 something dollars. Made a few purchases which totaled six transactions that day. Fast forward to Friday when I get my paycheck at work. I am told my account is past due and I ask the balance. The lady gave me a sheet that read -$230-something dollars! I was absolutely shocked. I had not made enough payments that day at the mall (or after) that totaled $70, so I went to talk to the bank manager. We went over my records, which indicated 6 overdraft fees of $35 and a $22 fee the day before. Apparently the day before I had been charged $22 overdraft on a transaction that was less than my balance (20 balance, $15 charge, $22 overdraft). Also, this showed the Wachovia online balance had been wildly inaccurate when I had checked online earlier that week. The $22 charge put my account in the red and all my purchases the next day added more overdraft charges. <\/p>\n
Sure, I apparently have bad money management, but how could this happen? At all the places I shopped that day I selected Debit (except the pretzel place). I had been under the impression Debit payments are deducted directly from my account. If I had no money, then why was my card not declined?<\/p>\n
That day I spoke with the bank manager, he personally eliminated the $22 charge and one of the $35 charges and said that was the best he could do. He was a great guy and did more than most people would. I used $80 of my paycheck to help boost the account. (I’m a student and work part time – so that was a lot of money).<\/p>\n
My plan was simply to pay this off little by little (since I had not managed my money properly), but a few minutes ago I got a call from Wachovia. The call began “Hello we have an important message for this account” and I was put on hold for about a minute. Why I answered the phone to be put on hold is beyond me. I assumed this was a salesperson and I almost hung up when Trina came on. I know Trina was simply doing her job, but she was ridiculously rude to me. She told me I needed to get the account resolved today or else I would not be able to get a checking account for five years. She said the overdraft fees are a convenience for customers. I asked how being charged $35 for a $3 pretzel is convenient but she gave the same canned answer. She even suggested that I borrow the money to pay off the account (now $130) from friends or family or use my student loans.I made the mistake of mentioning I also had a Navy Federal Account and she tried to get me to use that to pay off Wachovia. (Not going to happen).<\/p>\n
I am at the point where I have wasted $80 on this account and I don’t know if I should bother paying them the $130. How bad for my credit score will this be if I do not?<\/p>\n
The moral of this story is 1) Keep track of your balance, 2) Overdraft fees are ridiculous and 3) Don’t bank with Wachovia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you have suggestions or answers for Jared, don’t be shy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jared thought he had enough money in his Wachovia checking account to cover a mini-spending spree, but he found out soon after that he’d racked up big-time overdraft fees. Now he’s not sure whether or not he should pay Wachovia the money he owes or just cut and run and start over with a new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4514,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4514"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}