Anyone have some advice here on this bank problem

Okay so rent is due on the 1st. Girlfriend's account is monitored to the cent blah blah blah. Recently, she has had magazine subscriptions coming in and being charged with no idea where they are coming from. Three came in today for a total of $150 which also overdrafted the account a total of ten times because there were numerous $3 and $4 purchases that were going through for various things.

Calling the magazine places isn't doing a thing and the bank wants 7-10 days to look into it which will make us late on rent and the landlord is extremely anal about rent being a minute late and he honestly may evict us even though we haven't been late in the past. He's that serious about getting rent paid on time so his mortage and whatnot is taken care of on time and I understand his concern.

What would you guys do here? Is there any good advice on who I could talk to to get this solved quickly?

jakethompson said:

Okay so rent is due on the 1st. Girlfriend's account is monitored to the cent blah blah blah. Recently, she has had magazine subscriptions coming in and being charged with no idea where they are coming from. Three came in today for a total of $150 which also overdrafted the account a total of ten times because there were numerous $3 and $4 purchases that were going through for various things.

Calling the magazine places isn't doing a thing and the bank wants 7-10 days to look into it which will make us late on rent and the landlord is extremely anal about rent being a minute late and he honestly may evict us even though we haven't been late in the past. He's that serious about getting rent paid on time so his mortage and whatnot is taken care of on time and I understand his concern.

What would you guys do here? Is there any good advice on who I could talk to to get this solved quickly?

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Sorry to see this dilemma, JT. Looks like talking again with the bank is your best bet because first off, if you are telling the bank that you believe they are "unauthorized amounts", they will not count the magazines amounts against the account balance while they review it in the meantime. You could talk to the manager and explain that the $3 & $4 unrelated transactions should be allowed to go through unscathed with no fees since they (hopefully) would haven't caused any NSF fees by themselves.

As you can imagine, the bank will not remove the magazine transactions until AFTER their review but you can make a case for the NSF fees to be removed now until they have come to a conclusion (and that you can say to the manager that if they conclude it is authorized, THEN they can charge the NSF fee at that time if you still leave the account underfunded, etc). Negotiation with the bank manager seems the best bet here (no pun intended). Best of luck!

* CalvinTy

Alright well I've made a little progress. After speaking with the branch manager he gave me an 800 number to file the report and whatnot and I did that. Then I decided I'd try and call Sports Illustrated once more and it actually worked this time. I hate to be a dick but it seems to work much better than trying to reason. The lady (to her credit this is the best anyone has done so far) would only waive the fees minus the issues I've received and not the full amount. A little screaming and me calling for a manager had it fully waived within a minute. I hate to go that route but it seems like the only way to get them to take care of this.

So anyway, 7-10 days for a refund probably won't come into the bank in time for them to get the overdrafts waived so it sounds like now I need to call the bank, get on a 3-way call with SI to confirm the refund, and then they will waive the overdrafts associated with that charge.

Then if I can get through to Time and do the same 3-way call, I might just be able to get this taken care of.

What a pain in the ass though.

Thanks for the advice Calvin. The bank definitely had better advice and at least got me on the right path.

Booyah. Same method of being a dick worked at Time as well. It's kinda f-ed up that people won't help you out with jack unless you raise your voice but at least it's workin.

jakethompson said:

Booyah. Same method of being a dick worked at Time as well. It's kinda f-ed up that people won't help you out with jack unless you raise your voice but at least it's workin.

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Glad you are making progress. It'd have been more challenging for me since I use the relay service to make calls (being deaf) and evidently, I can't be a real dick via voice (plus, it's not in my character to be one, anyway) so I have to rely on logic and being very clear with my questions and/or points to make them realize they are not dealing with someone they can "just brush off". (Maybe the reason why I also have success in those rare times is because they give more attention to me once they realize the call is no longer between me and them as they are "aware of 3rd person talking for me", LOL).

P.S. It is also a boon for me to save conversations this way as after the conversation is done online, I can save the phone conversations and use them as necessary in future calls. ;-)

* CalvinTy

JT, find out the name of the magazines or better still if there is some sort of service that sell groups of magazines, by that I mean the magazines you bought and other popular magazines etc. all from the same source. What these places do is pitch 2 or 3 years worth of a popular magazine like "People" at 14 cents a week which sounds great, the problem is the fine print, you have to buy them for 3 to 5 years and pre pay the 14 cents a week that same day you give them your bank information which natrually is never mentioned. This is how innocent and accurate check balance checking account holders like your girldfriend get their accounts wiped out..

With any luck you will be able to find the outfit that sold the magazines to your GF on the website and bring it down to the bank as back up to her story. Banks hear stories all the time but oness will real evidence will go a lot farther to help a client than those without evidence such as previous foul play.

Thisa happened to me with an online music download website that sounded great at $1.40 cents a month for 48 months but not when they debeted my account the whole 48 months the next day. To make a long story shotrt I contaced my back who said there was nothing I could do. Well I heard about Rip-offReport.com and I found the outfit that had ripped me and faxed the information from Rip Off to the the bank secruity person and she reversed the charges. I know you are up against some time constraints but if you get lucky and find some dirt on this outfit that sold her the magazines, made copies and hand carry it down to the bank yoursleves you might get somewhere. other places are Better Busines Bureaus and the internet in general. Worth a shot.




wil.

The problem with finding out who sold her the magazines isn't easy since she says she never signed up for anything. The only online thing she's done in the last few months is a change of address with the USPS. SI told me that if you buy things at Best Buy then sometimes magazine subscriptions are kind of slipped in there but all the Best Buy purchases have been cash so that would not explain a credit card charge.

The bank won't do a 3-way call for some reason (they've done it in the past for me when I was charged for not returning my cable equipment when infact I had and it was returned on the wrong account #). They say the best they can do is wait the 7-10 days until they see the refunds show up on my account. Then they will waive all the overdraft fees and get the account back to where it should be. Not a ton of help but I think I've hit the end of the road and the landlord says as long as it's there by the 5th we are okay. Cross your fingers these refunds show up on time I guess.

There are nearly $600 in overdraft fees and charges associated with these magazines subscriptions so hopefully this gets taken care of shortly.

Thanks to everyone for the help. It's not the best possible solution for me but it should do and I don't think there's much else I can do at the moment.

I wouldn't worry about being evicted because there is a process that the landlord has to go through in order to do it; you don't just get thrown out because you're a day (or even a week) late. As far as dealing with the bank and the magazine slimeballs, the best thing is to inform them that you are only paying charges that you authorized and that if they want anything else they better be ready to go to court and be countersued. The link Wil posted to www.ripoffreport.com is an excellent website for advice on how to deal with crap like this.