UMB BANK ALSO KNOWN AS UNITED MISSOURI BANK SUCKS

heathb commented:

I have been keeping up with banks practices for years and I think few people realize just how tricky bank fees are. No where is this more evident than in the bogus overdraft fees that banks use to extort money from consumers.

I own a small business and we deposit around $200,000 annually into our Wachovia Business Checking Account, and yet no matter how hard my wife and I try, no matter how diligent and detailed we are with our accounts, we still go negative from time to time.

We also have a "personal" checking account with Wachovia, and again, it goes negative from time to time. In the last few years I have spent $37.00 for a Starbucks coffee more than one time if you know what I mean. I want to share some second hand, but very reliable information that I got from both a Wachovia employee and a former employee for the FDIC.

Reading this should help people realize the way the bank thinks. First, Wachovia, and banks in general, look upon their customers as an expense. I mean, when you stop to think about it, they (banks) have to store and keep data on you, not mention the fact that they have to turn that information over to the US government for oversight into possible terrorist funds. Then they have to mail you your statement, talk to you on the phone, and have a real, human being who gets paid, called a "teller", to actually take you money.

In some cases they have to keep and maintain ATM machines around each region. All in all, you, the customer, are only worth to a bank what you put in your account. But, it doesn't stop there. Not only are you worth only what you have deposited into your account, but you are worth even less to them if you do not leave the money in the account long enough. In other words, if you keep a relatively low balance and you milk out all of your money as soon as you put it in, then the way the figure it, they never get to keep you money long enough. Banks figured out a long time ago that a $35.00 return on a $2.00 cup of coffee was greater and faster than an annual percentage rate for some house that it might take the average Joe six pack 30 years to pay off. If you are a bank, the real money is in fees, mostly overdraft fees.

Thus, banks began to realize that the modern consumer lifestyle keeps us busy and on the road making numerous small purchases. In order to meet the demands of the modern life-style they offered us the "Visa check Card". Its fast, its safe, its simple, and oh yea, its really expensive if you are not careful.

As gas prices and food surge, more and more people will have less and less to keep in their accounts, and guess who wins when that happens? In reality, a bank will win if you maintain a high-balance because they will have more of your money to invest. Likewise, they will win by hitting you with negative charges when your account goes low, or if you simply maintain a low balance. Either way they will not lose. You see, really overdraft fees and other bogus
fees in general are just what a bank charges you for the privilege of allowing you to use their services.

In fact, overdraft fees ensure to a bank that they will at least get some money back out of you. Unlike the days when our grandparents put money in the bank, and money deposited was enough in itself to constitute a relationship between you and the bank, today's financial institutions have cashed in on our spending habits and they are making billions. Most people don't realize it, but the whole objective of banking is to make you negative.

If you don't believe me, then why do banks run software that greatly increases chances of an overdraft? Why do banks "stack" your purchases from high to low? Why don't banks just simply cut you off once you have spent more than you have in your account? Why don't they charge you a simple percentage instead of a whopping $35.00 per transaction? Why do they hold some charges, post others, and all the while they show an available balance that's not really available at all. This is all designed to extort more and more money from each and every customer.

By the way, I am sure that millions of people never go negative, but guess what, millions of others do, and despite what Wachovia, and other banks tell those customers, they ( the customers) are not irresponsible people who failed to monitor their activities. In fact, most people with a bank account watch it very closely, they just fail to realize that the statistics and the system are stacked against them. With each purchase you are gambling with you money. All an overdraft fee is, is just punishment for not leaving enough in your account to make it worthwhile for them to provide you with service.

Finally, I have found one definite, sure-fire way to avoid the rip-off................just start using cash. That's right. When you want something, pay cash. Start doing that and the bank will have less of your money from the start. Stop giving them your whole paycheck to play around with. Keep as much of your money as possible in your hands and they will feel the pain, I can assure you they will feel it. Oh by the way, by keeping more cash in your pocket, you will be frowned upon for having a low balance, but you won't have to endure the pain of 100's of dollars in negative charges.

UMB BANK ALSO KNOWN AS UNITED MISSOURI BANK SUCKS

UMB Bank settles up

Since there is no law which might be used to really take them to the cleaners I decided that the best thing to do was to call the mistake to their attention which I did today.
The lady I first spoke to was not at the bank today so I spoke to another lady who handled the matter in a very professional manner once she understood what the problem was.
But the reversal process she went through revealed another nasty effect of their vicious software. Here it is. If your account is negative and you get some funds that allow you to bring your account current thereby stopping the fees their software will still grab an extra days negative balance fee for the last day it was negative even though your account was not negative that day. So don't think you can just put in enough to cover the shortfall and cure the problem. That extra swipe will put you right back in the negative all over again if you don't put in more than enough to cover the shortfall. You will always have to put in more money than you think you need to stop the charges by at least whatever amount the negative balance fee is because their software is going to take one more last vicious swipe at your account.

The fight is still on

But it will now take a different turn. There is a bill before the House of Representatives known as H.R. 946 which would make banks liable under TILA or truth in lending act. It has been sitting there since last spring with no activity so it's way past time to dust it off and get it to a hearing before the House and the Senate and hopefully a vote which will get it passed into law.
Thanks to what is known as Social Networking that should not be nearly as hard as it might seem.
I have started a group on Facebook which I hope will get enough attention and support to make it happen. The group is also on Myspace.com and I'm sure I can get it featured on a few more such social networks.
Social networking is getting a huge play these days and lots of traffic so maybe I can get some attention for this project.

You can help further the cause by clicking here

I have determined that banking fees such as overdraft fees and negative balance fees have been specifically excluded from legal action under TILA so that lets out the possibility of suing them for failure to reveal the true APR under TILA.

There is a bill before congress known as H.R. 946 which would change that but there has been no action since early 2007. It appears that we need to start writing to our reps and senators in Washington to get some action going on that bill.

Since I can't sue them and get anywhere that way then I will just have to do the next best thing and help bring a lot of publicity to this ugly banking practice.

UMB BANK ALSO KNOWN AS UNITED MISSOURI BANK SUCKS

UMB started it's ripoff process today, April 16th, 2008 by adding an $8.00 negative balance fee to the already overdrawn account. So by the time the 1st of May rolls around the overdraft amount they will take out should figure out to be $179.00 or thereabouts. Here is where it starts adding in $8.00 per day. Click on the image below to get an enlarged view.

Here is another poor lady ripped off by Wachovia Bank for the same thing.

Ripped off by Wachovia

UMB
ripoff
UMB Bank sucks

UMB BANK ALSO KNOWN AS UNITED MISSOURI BANK SUCKS

When I spoke to the bank manager on the first of April She told me that UMB policy is that UMB first of all charges the $35.00 NSF overdraft fee and then if the matter isn't taken care of within 5 days the $8.00 per day negative balance fee kicks in.

.

Yesterday I estimated that by the first of May I would owe them $224.00 so now I have to revise the estimate down to $184.00. Today marks the 1st day of the grace period. The printout of account activity shows now change from the day before so the manager was at least correct when she said UMB waits 5 days to start charging the negative balance fee.
So there isn't much reason to actually show any more screen shots of the printouts until the account actually changes somehow. So until the account changes you can refer to Account history as of 04-09-2008 if you wish to see it.
negative balance fee
UMB

This is the 9th of April and they took their first vicious swipe today which was not for the $8.00 negative balance fee but a whopping $35.00! And for what? Here is the story through today.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A LARGER AND MUCH MORE READABLE IMAGE

So as of today
they have charged $43.00 for their mistake. There are now 23 days left in this month so that should amount to $184.00 in additional "negative balance" fees. From the looks of things that will make a total of $224 in fees for an overdraft I didn't cause.

UMB Bank also known as United Bank of Missouri is well known for it's wide range of little tricls that are designed to beat you out of your hard earned money. Here is one of the meanest, nastiest tricks ever invented by the banking industry and utilized in crazy ways to beat their customers out of money.

Overdraw your checking account and you pay them $35.00 per bounced item. Well, that's nothing new and people have pretty well accustomed themselves to getting beaten up on for every check they bounce. So we all say, "OK, So what?"

But what if they have granted you overdraft protection for your checking account and they pay any checks that come in? We would probably still say "Hey That's Great! What are you complaining about? You asked for it, they gave it to you and they paid your checks so that makes the $35.00 a check well worth it. Don't have to worry about getting in trouble with the law that way."

That's all quite understandable, of course. But the rub comes in when they charge you an additional $8.00 a day for every day your account balance remains negative. Let's say you get paid every month because you are on a government pension such as SSI and your check comes in on the 1st of every month by EFT. You go to the bank on the first and find out you owe them $104.00 in negative balance fees plus the amount of the chekc(s) you wrote plus $35.00 for each check. If the checks were small, say 1 check for $7.95 copay on some medications you needed and you used your debit card to pay. You never actually wrote any physical paper check at all.

So you owe $15.90 for the checks plus $70,00 for the overdraft charges plus $240.00 for the negative balance fees. That's a whopping $325.90. Your pension check is only
about $700.00 to start with so realizing you need to get a break somehow you go to the bank and ask them what the heck is the $240.00 for. After all, you paid the money back plus $70 for their check charges but what on earth is the $340.00 for and you are told that it is a negative balance fee.

Of course, you know that is nothing but a finance fee regardless of what they choose to call it and you know that if you took them to federal court the outcome should be that the judge would rule in your favor. So you figure out that if you get a bit tough about it and tell them you couldn't care less what they call it a federal judge will rule that it is nothing more or less than a finance charge. That would give you the right to demand to be informed what the APR is for each day because it would change every day they added on another $8.00. You give them the option of either telling you what the APR is each day and of course they say they don't have to do that. You retort that they can either provide it to you or they can explain it to a federal judge. They come back with the statement that if I want to sue them I'll have to talk to their lawyer.

HO! HO! HO! No I don't. All I got to do is prepare my complaint under TILA and go file it pro se and it won't even cost me a dime.

When they see that this conversation is getting a bit heavy they offer to do me a one time favor of forgiving all those $8.00 charges and refunding it back to me which I agree to and they instantly change my account to reflect the refund. They tell me that I don't ever need to ask them to do that again because they won't do it again.
OK! I really don't care because all I have to do is go to the bank first of each month and grab all the money out execpt for the $4.50 account maintenance fee and it won't ever happen again. I get unlimited free cashier's checks with the account and since those normally cost about $2.50 or so for each check and I need about 4 or 5 of those a month to pay my bills with I get a good deal for the $4.50 a month fee. So off I go singing a happy song.

But lo and behold I get back home and check my account on line the next day and there is another one of their $8.00 fees. Since I drew out all my money but $10 I left in to pay for the monthly service fee ($4.50) I now have $2.15 left in the bank which is not enough to cover the $4.50 monthly service fee which comes in the next day. When that hits I will be overdrawn again by $2.35! That is where the real fun begins because at least theoretically I am broke and have to wait till the first of next month to get any money put in that account. It's now the 8th day of the month so 30 days minus there are 19 days left in this month. Nineteen days times $8.00 a day comes to $570.00 interest and I won't even have written a check or used my debit card. $570 for nothing! I wonder what the APR is for $0.00 borrowed?

Of course some will say that I should have checked my account and alerted them to the problem so that didn't happen but why would I check my account if I already knew I only had $5.50 in it after they took $4.50 out for the monthly service fee? Why would I waste my time that way? I got better things to do than that even if it is only watching Family Guy on TV.

We will see what happens over the next 19 days. One thought is that what I am hoping will happen won't because their computer system might be set up to recognize that no check or debit card use occurred so the computer can't tack on extra for the $8.00 a day but if the only trigger in place is the fact that the account is overdrawn then they are going to have some awfully red faces when I go to the bank and want my money next month. I won't have been damaged until they actually take the $547 out of my account the first of the month but if that happens then I have heavy damages. I'll make damned sure of that.