I screwed up big time

Avatar for fire_bug
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
I screwed up big time
13
Fri, 01-02-2009 - 12:12pm

And I don't know if I can fix it. It was my mistake, but it doesn't look like the credit union is willing to help us out.

Here's the story... I had two automatic payments coming out of that checking account. When things started to get really bad I canceled them - or at least I thought I did. I think all I did was cancel one payment for each of them instead of canceling the recurring payment. I didn't realize what I had done and because we should have had money, I was still using the debit card. One payment came out a couple days before Christmas and the other one came out a couple days after Christmas. Normally the CU will decline charges if the available balance (not even the actual balance) isn't enough to cover the charge. For whatever reason that didn't happen this time so I kept happily using the card, oblivious to the fact that we were overdrawn. We ended up getting slammed with 17 overdraft charges at $27 apiece.

When I realized what happened (when they finally did decline a purchase when I still thought I had money) I called them to see if they could do anything. The woman I talked to said she put in a request to have the overdraft charges reversed and it would take 24-48 hours and if I see the changes being reversed, the request was approved. If not, it wasn't. She said we can appeal if it's not approved. Wednesday would have been 48 hours, but I thought I'd give them until today since there was a holiday, but so far they haven't done anything.

I don't know what, if anything I can do at this point. I don't know how the appeal process works, so I don't even know if we have a chance. Is there anything we can do to improve our chances of getting the request approved? I'm so upset because that's the account our spending money comes out of and with all the overdraft charges, it will eat up most of our next deposit, too.


Photobucket





babies




Photobucket

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-01-2008
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 9:55am
My credit union offers overdraft protection on our checking accounts. I applied for overdraft protection for up to $5,000. It has a 17.5% interest rate, which is high, but on the few occasions that I've had to use it, I was able to pay the money back with my next paycheck.
Mary Jo







iVillage Member
Registered: 01-03-2009
Sat, 01-03-2009 - 7:14pm
We belong to a credit union as well and I agree they should not have let all those charges go through. Please call and bug them incessantly, I dont know if there is an actual branch you can walk into and speak to someone, but thats what I would try. I would think that they would at least forgive part of the overdraft fees. Credit unions are owned by the members and they should be easier to deal with than a big impersonal bank. At least thats my experience with our credit union. Good luck, please post what happens.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-05-2008
Mon, 01-05-2009 - 12:25pm

Unfortunately, bank fees are something I have experience with.

Photobucket 

Pages