Help against a bank

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 12:59 pm

My mother is having a bout with her local bank. She posted on Fri aug 26th to have 700$ taken from her account to pay for her mortgage payment and payed a 5.00 fee so that it was taken on the 29th. On the 29th, and 30th, nothing showed on her online balance or her balance from ATM's that 700's had been taken out. Today we went in to the bank to find out what was going on and they had taken two payments out.

One on the Aug 26th out of her old account which she had closed last year around December that was Cached in to our computer from last time she used bill pay, Which got fowarded as a deduction to her new account, and one on the 29th under her new account.

The bank of course says there is nothing we can do except ask the other bank which the mortgage payments go to to reverse the payment.

I am asking are they allowed to do this, How are they still allowed to process payments from an account that has been closed for over 6 months?

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:21 pm

If there's money in the account and the bill payments are still set up that way I suppose they could. how are they to know two payments had been active to the same payee? I don't use any bill pay setups, stuff like this happens sometimes and when it does the customer's hands are tied. It does sound like an error on your mom's part. Your mortgage company may agree to send you a check but by the time you get it your next payment will probably be due.

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:25 pm

Ahso!;1367710 wrote: If there's money in the account and the bill payments are still set up that way I suppose they could. how are they to know two payments had been active to the same payee? I don't use any bill pay setups, stuff like this happens sometimes and when it does the customer's hands are tied. It does sound like an error on your mom's part. Your mortgage company may agree to send you a check but by the time you get it your next payment will probably be due.

Yeah I still don't understand how they can allow an old closed account (that had been closed for 6 months) to even process a payment and then post it to the new active account.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:27 pm

littleCJelkton;1367705 wrote: My mother is having a bout with her local bank. She posted on Fri aug 26th to have 700$ taken from her account to pay for her mortgage payment and payed a 5.00 fee so that it was taken on the 29th. On the 29th, and 30th, nothing showed on her online balance or her balance from ATM's that 700's had been taken out. Today we went in to the bank to find out what was going on and they had taken two payments out.

One on the Aug 26th out of her old account which she had closed last year around December that was Cached in to our computer from last time she used bill pay, Which got fowarded as a deduction to her new account, and one on the 29th under her new account.

The bank of course says there is nothing we can do except ask the other bank which the mortgage payments go to to reverse the payment.

I am asking are they allowed to do this, How are they still allowed to process payments from an account that has been closed for over 6 months?

I don't know the US banking system but in the UK it would generally be accepted as the bank's mistake and rectified by them.

If you are trying to handle this verbally and getting nowhere then put it on paper. Write to the manager explaining what has happened and stating that, as this is a mistake made by the bank, you expect them to rectify their mistake and reimburse your mother for any charges that she has incurred. If this does not receive a favourable response then be prepared to go up the line to the area / regional manager and, ultimately, to the ombudsman or whatever the US equivalent is.

In the mean time you should contact your mortgage company and explain that your bank has made a mistake and double paid to your account. If you can possibly afford to wait then I'd explain they you are trying to get your bank to correct their error but that, if they won't, you will correct the situation by not paying next month's payment - this will give you time to chase your bank and reduce the possibility of a double correction. If you cannot afford to have the money tied up for that long then see if they will repay but be prepared for confusion if both ends meet in the middle.

This is, one way or another, squarely the fault of your bank - either they have the old account as a linked account to the new and accepted the instruction as was, in which case they should not have made the second payment, or the old account is closed and unlinked in which case they should not have made a payment from it at all and should either have rejected the instruction or, as a courtesy, made the payment from the new account. To do both is not a position they could justify under any reasonable explanation.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:30 pm

How can an account be closed when there are funds sitting in it?

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:34 pm

Bryn Mawr;1367712 wrote: I don't know the US banking system but in the UK it would generally be accepted as the bank's mistake and rectified by them.

If you are trying to handle this verbally and getting nowhere then put it on paper. Write to the manager explaining what has happened and stating that, as this is a mistake made by the bank, you expect them to rectify their mistake and reimburse your mother for any charges that she has incurred. If this does not receive a favourable response then be prepared to go up the line to the area / regional manager and, ultimately, to the ombudsman or whatever the US equivalent is.

In the mean time you should contact your mortgage company and explain that your bank has made a mistake and double paid to your account. If you can possibly afford to wait then I'd explain they you are trying to get your bank to correct their error but that, if they won't, you will correct the situation by not paying next month's payment - this will give you time to chase your bank and reduce the possibility of a double correction. If you cannot afford to have the money tied up for that long then see if they will repay but be prepared for confusion if both ends meet in the middle.

This is, one way or another, squarely the fault of your bank - either they have the old account as a linked account to the new and accepted the instruction as was, in which case they should not have made the second payment, or the old account is closed and unlinked in which case they should not have made a payment from it at all and should either have rejected the instruction or, as a courtesy, made the payment from the new account. To do both is not a position they could justify under any reasonable explanation.the problem the bank has is the mortgage company will have applied both payments to the loan, so how is the bank supposed to pull the money back out?

i suggest if nothing else happens, call your mortgage company and make sure the extra payment goes exclusively to the loan principal and not the interest.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:34 pm

Ahso!;1367713 wrote: How can an account be closed when there are funds sitting in it?

There were no funds in it. They paid the $700 creaing an overdraft that they then covered by transferring money from the new account.

So says the OP.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:39 pm

Bryn Mawr;1367715 wrote: There were no funds in it. They paid the $700 creaing an overdraft that they then covered by transferring money from the new account.

So says the OP.You may be right but it would still have shown up in the new account, but perhaps not until monday, though overdrafts usually show up immediately these days.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:39 pm

Ahso!;1367714 wrote: the problem the bank has is the mortgage company will have applied both payments to the loan, so how is the bank supposed to pull the money back out?

i suggest if nothing else happens, call your mortgage company and make sure the extra payment goes exclusively to the loan principal and not the interest.

As I say, I do not know the US banking system. In the UK the bank would do a payment reversal.

Leaving it as an extra payment is fine as long as you can afford to write off the $700 for the life of the mortgage. Even if I could afford to do so I'd be pi$$ed at having to for a mistake by my bank.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:41 pm

Bryn Mawr;1367717 wrote: As I say, I do not know the US banking system. In the UK the bank would do a payment reversal.

Leaving it as an extra payment is fine as long as you can afford to write off the $700 for the life of the mortgage. Even if I could afford to do so I'd be pi$$ed at having to for a mistake by my bank.I agree.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:43 pm

Where have the mortgage payments been coming out from for the past 6 months, CJ?

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:46 pm

Surely a closed account without funds doesn't exist, how can they lodge charges against a non existent account ?................or whatever account the charges were put against.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:49 pm

Bruv;1367720 wrote: Surely a closed account without funds doesn't exist, how can they lodge charges against a non existent account ?................or whatever account the charges were put against.It sounds like the two accounts were linked.

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:58 pm

Ahso!;1367719 wrote: Where have the mortgage payments been coming out from for the past 6 months, CJ?

From a local bank Cecil federal Cecil Bank to Chase home loan finace.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:59 pm

Ahso!;1367721 wrote: It sounds like the two accounts were linked.

Thats the point, there should have only been one account, how can they link to an extinct account........you expect a Bank to get there bookwork right.......they can't even count the accounts correctly.

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:00 pm

Ahso!;1367721 wrote: It sounds like the two accounts were linked.
Why would an Old account be linked to anything after 6th months of no activity?

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:01 pm

littleCJelkton;1367722 wrote: From a local bank Cecil federal Cecil Bank to Chase home loan finace.A completely different bank?

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:03 pm

littleCJelkton;1367724 wrote: Why would an Old account be linked to anything after 6th months of no activity?I'm thinking there must have been money in the account, it only takes a little for an account to remain active. What reason did the bank give for the account remaining active?

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:27 pm

littleCJelkton;1367724 wrote: Why would an Old account be linked to anything after 6th months of no activity?

Was the account actively closed or just unused? It makes a big difference.

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:50 pm

Ahso!;1367726 wrote: I'm thinking there must have been money in the account, it only takes a little for an account to remain active. What reason did the bank give for the account remaining active?
No the account has been closed with 0.00 balance for 6 months, what happened because I believe they have a crappy IT service(there site is down constantly, an this morning when we went to go to the branch to find out there computers where down, so we had to go to another).

She logged on her new account but when she pressed to do online bill pay instead of having it programmed in the system to bill pay to auto-fill with the new information from the new account she logged in on, it used cached information, then the system saw it was our old account so from my best hypothesis is it fowarded to our new account as linked, but since there was a transaction on our old account it was made active thus the old account was charged and sent again to the new account. We went we online when we were told this to look at the online bill pay history and the online bill pay option was not there (i have the print screen to show). We went back to the main branch to get it rectified, but then they changed the story from the original teller " your old account was charged" to "you authorized to online bill pays on this account"

and they said the bill pay option was missing when she logged on because it was blocked when we log on because of what happened to the account which means we can no longer get the history of my mom's online bill pay.

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:51 pm

Bryn Mawr;1367730 wrote: Was the account actively closed or just unused? It makes a big difference.

It is closed or at least that is what we were told, and what we told them to do is close the account. The whole reason for closing the old account 6 months ago was to make sure no activity was made on it as the reason for closing it was my step father left a blank check and his card at the appartment complex he works at as the Handyman, but as I stated what they tell us changes as we were originally told it a payment was made on the old account, and now were told she approved of two payments to the account which doesn't make any sense as she payed 5.00 to hold it to the 29th but one deduction is posted for the 26th and one for the 29th, but both came out today.

littleCJelkton · Post by **littleCJelkton** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:55 pm

Yes the bill pay posted to pay 700$ from her cecil federal checking account (her only checking account) to her mortgage companies account owned by chase

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:09 pm

littleCJelkton;1367735 wrote: It is closed or at least that is what we were told, and what we told them to do is close the account. The whole reason for closing the old account 6 months ago was to make sure no activity was made on it as the reason for closing it was my step father left a blank check and his card at the appartment complex he works at as the Handyman, but as I stated what they tell us changes as we were originally told it a payment was made on the old account, and now were told she approved of two payments to the account which doesn't make any sense as she payed 5.00 to hold it to the 29th but one deduction is posted for the 26th and one for the 29th, but both came out today.

If you have written instructions to close the old account then you have them cold - they have no right to make payment from a closed account and cannot produce two instructions to pay from your new account.

Mustang · Post by **Mustang** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:13 pm

littleCJelkton;1367733 wrote: No the account has been closed with 0.00 balance for 6 months, what happened because I believe they have a crappy IT service(there site is down constantly, an this morning when we went to go to the branch to find out there computers where down, so we had to go to another).

She logged on her new account but when she pressed to do online bill pay instead of having it programmed in the system to bill pay to auto-fill with the new information from the new account she logged in on, it used cached information, then the system saw it was our old account so from my best hypothesis is it fowarded to our new account as linked, but since there was a transaction on our old account it was made active thus the old account was charged and sent again to the new account. We went we online when we were told this to look at the online bill pay history and the online bill pay option was not there (i have the print screen to show). We went back to the main branch to get it rectified, but then they changed the story from the original teller " your old account was charged" to "you authorized to online bill pays on this account"

and they said the bill pay option was missing when she logged on because it was blocked when we log on because of what happened to the account which means we can no longer get the history of my mom's online bill pay.

May I ask why you are dealing with a "bank teller" and not requesting to speak face to face with the "branch manager" to solve this issue?

Usually the manager is capable of resolving an issue like this verses a teller.

flopstock · Post by **flopstock** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 5:13 am

littleCJelkton;1367724 wrote: Why would an Old account be linked to anything after 6th months of no activity?

'No activity' is different than 'closed'. If your mother had not actually closed that account, it's entirely possible she made the mistake.

I have two accounts and have posted payments from the wrong account and when I didn't see it come through the bank I was expecting I went back and redid it. Doesn't happen often, as I can't afford it. But it has happened.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 5:52 am

This is why I prefer to set my payments up so the creditor pulls the owed money out rather than have my bank push it out.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:08 am

I still send in my mortgage payment by check, I don't want it automatically withdrawn.