KeyBank Sucks!

[Player0]

A bunch of you have been asking about the KeyBank 'stole' counter under my name on the left there. I figgured I should clarify some things here about 'the situation'. Before I went to college in 1997, I decided to get a bank account so family members could deposit money in to the account and transfer funds to me. I had never had a bank before so I thought it was a good idea, and I signed up for a checking account with KeyBank since they were one of the few banks up where I lived and where I was going to school (and lots of other places in NY). Everything was fine until a few years later when I started needing to pay bills, and I noticed KeyBank loved giving me these hideous bank fee charges, like for using a cashier or taking money from a different KeyBank location. Then in 1999, I changed schools and moved to a new location. I left a postive balance in KeyBank and thought I could forget about it, as there wasn't a Key near where I lived. I thought it would either gather a little interest, or eventually hit $0 and close. Hey, I didn't know better.

A couple years later, I moved again and decided it would be a good time to have a bank account now that I was working 'in the real world'. I went back to KeyBank because it was convenient. They told me I had an outstanding account (not amazing, just outstanding) for $70. I said, okay, no problem, and paid the $70 and reopened my account. Apparantly they charged some fees that overdrafted the account, didnt know how to contact me, and they closed the account in the red.

About a year ago, I got fed up with all the excess charges keybank loved putting on me and it was too much. They sucked and I wanted to change to a different better bank. Denied. Tried a couple other banks, denied denied denied. At first I thought it was my poor credit rating (another story). Then I got a letter from ChexSys, the company blacklisting me. I ordered a report and I found out that back in 6/99 KeyBank listed me with ChexSys because of the -$70 in the account!! Did they try to collect the money? OH NO...they just blacklisted me. I figgured I was stuck, was sick of getting turned down at banks (its an embarrasing process) so I decided to stay with key until the blacklist was lifted, which I thought in 3-5 years.

And then, the PayPals. A few weeks ago, I bought a few old video games on Ebay for $8-$25 a piece. I was buying a present for myself, couldn't have been more than $150-$200 total for the collection. I have direct deposit from work, and that gets deposited on Tuesday. Tuesday is also the first day of the week in so far as transaction processing (it happens Monday at midnight). I placed the echeck PayPals sunday evening, thinking that they usually take 3-4 working days (so Weds-Friday) to process. It even says this on PayPal.com. And even if they did go thought fast, the Tuesday deposit would cover it.

Wrong. Unknown to me at the time, the direct deposit goes through on Tuesday, but is not available fully until Wednesday! Its only partially available on Tuesday, like 80% of it. A couple checks cleared on Tuesday, which was expected, and it should have left enough in the bank to cover the paypals. In fact, it did, except that the money wasn't fully available. The PayPals went through in one business day instead of 3-4.

I got charged about 10 'uncollected fund' fees which means they actually PAID the PayPals, but because the check hadn't fully cleared, the money wasn't 'entirely' available. Yes, in something as black and white as money, banks manage to find grey areas such as 'uncollected funds'. Most banks btw, dont charge a fee for that unless the funds really arent collected in the future! Each one of those echecks (some for only $8-$10) cost me $35 each in fees. In fact, it added up to about $350 plus another $30 for 'excessive uncollected funds fees'. There was a lot of them, so they charged me more. WTF.

Of course, I live paycheck to paycheck after loosing my job in Feb and the new wife moving in without finding a job herself yet. So the domino effect ensued, many other things bounced because that $350 in charges was more than I could afford. Before I knew it, I was up to almost $600 in fees.

A week later, everything had settled down, I hadn't seen any extra fees in a few days, the account was in the postive thanks to a couple friendly loans and we were ready to take a trip for July 4th holiday. While at the mall getting a tux for my sisters wedding, I decided to take $20 out of the bank, since it was listed at like $34 and I thought things were kosher. The ATM let me take out $20 so i could pay the deposit on the tux.

Well I got home, and the bank said $14. And it wasnt until like 7/9 that I noticed another whole series of bank fees!!! Because it was a holiday weekend, it took much longer for the ATM to show 'true' money. That is, I only had about $10 in the bank account, even though it said $34. WHY?? Well, because my account had been in the negative for more than a couple days the previous week, there was an additional charge of $30 for that. Of course, it was dated for 7/3 or something, but I didnt see the charge until 7/9!!!!! So I got charged $40 for that $20 I took out, and I got another $27 negative charge and some other charges.

Well, a few other problems later (and some more to come tommarow) and I might be hitting $800 in fees soon. Does this seem incredible to anyone else? Why didn't I close my account right away before? They wouldn't let me. They won't let me close the account while in the negative or while things are pending. Of course, lately, my account has either always been in the negative or pending! I tried to open another account at a different bank in the mean time, and I still get ChexSys denials.

I am *this* close to moving to a different country. I swear to god.

[spldart]

Close the account when you can.
Cash payroll check at the bank that your employer uses (and pay their bulls#it cashing fee :rolleyes: ) and use money orders to pay bills and cash for everything else.
I did this for years instead of opening an account.

Banks are the theives nowadays :mad:

[Synthohol]

never pay a fee at your employers bank, go inside, have a fingerprint taken 2 forms of ID and they have to cash it, if its drawn on that bank.

[WackyComputer]

The idea that spldart has is a good one but how would you use PayPal?

[spldart]

Dunno bout paypal :confused:

Synth...Here if you take the payroll check to the employers bank with 2 forms of ID and the thumbprint you still get charged a fee. There is no way around it anymore. All the banks do this to anyone cashing a check who doesn't actually have an account there except minors.

[Player0]

I might go that route spldart, unless I can find a bank with normal fees that will give me a debit mastercard, which would be more than great.

Paypal takes paper transfers but it takes a lot longer.

[ralf_c]

thet sucks p0

aren't there any laws to keep people from getting hosed like that.

man thats crazy, those bastards really got you. is ther any way you can fight those bs charges

[amdrules770]

Dang man, that sucks hardcore!!!!! I keep getting overdraft charges because my fuggin online banking doesn't work, so I have to "guess" as to how much money I have. I also spend money paycheck by paycheck (I am really lucky that I am a minor, and live with my parents).

[Synthohol]

OK, here is the skinny:
1) you have 60 days to dispute the bank charges

2)you must find out whom governs that bank ie: OTS or FBC or other.

3)Commercial banks are offline systems, they are rarely if ever up to date which is the importance of keeping an accurate ledger.
this is acceptable in the banking community, its the only way they do make money is through fees and charges. this is what commercial banks do unfortunatly.

4) CheckSystems is GLOBAL moving to another country still wont help, blacklist hell will follow you around the earth, period.
you may petition the governing force of KeyBank and hopefully find a soft ear to tell your story to.

it is unfortunate that you were not aware of dormant account fees when you moved , it was your responsibility to provide the bank a fowarding address when you moved so you might have cought it just in time before your hell started.
it is near impossible to bank electronically with a commercial bank, they can be up to 10 days behind and its still ok (bastards).

IMHO i would still try to plea with the banks manager of your situation, find out what they require of you to make restitution to be removed from the blacklist and GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT BANK. find a good S&L that is not commercial, even if they are in another state as long as their electronic banking is instant and up to date. ie: Penn Federal Savings Bank, (the bank my wife works for for 15+ years). i watch every other wednesday at 7:45-7:50 my direct deposit goes in even before the bank opens. i pay bills online, swap around moneys when needed and its all instant.

the EXCEPTION to this is the damn MAC machines. they fall under a different set of rules, they can be 1-5 days in posting actual balances, and posting transactions.
oh, and NEVER EVER buy gas or eat at a resturant and put it on a debit card, they can by law hold in excess of 75.00 over your bill against you for the rest of the billing cycle. which means you can and will bounce a check even if the money IS there.

Tom, i debated this with my wife on a professional level for over an hour and it boiled down to if the bank staff wont bend, go to their governing body, if they wont bend God be with you my friend:(

try to find a bank that does not use CheckSystems, there are still some out there.
other approach is the credit cards you deposit a balance first and work from there.
also if you have been a member of PayPal for so long give them a buzz, but i doubt it will help though, its unfortunately against some law that you cant make any debits to your account unless the money is there to begin with regardless of when they say they will debit the account, just as it is a federal offence to post-date a check, if cought at best...community service, at worst...Jail.

I wish i had better news/advice but after taking this up with a professional banker, it dosent look as promising as i had hoped it would be.
advice to everyone- stay clear of commercial banks, they will kill the little guy...its their job especialy when savings account interest rates are down to .30 to.25%.
nowadays unless you have alot to invest or risk, it saves you money by keeping cash under your mattress to avoid the fees out there. banking is a dying trade right now, look how many banks are being taken over by other banks around us, fees and penalties are a banks moneymaker, without them they will fall to the way of the dinosaurs.
also investigate credit unions.
one last thing, fleet bank will let you carry a negitive balance for months, as long as you pay the fees they will not put you on blacklist. (sounds like the mafia.)
I wish you luck bud!

[Synthohol]

Originally posted by spldart
Dunno bout paypal :confused:

Synth...Here if you take the payroll check to the employers bank with 2 forms of ID and the thumbprint you still get charged a fee. There is no way around it anymore. All the banks do this to anyone cashing a check who doesn't actually have an account there except minors.
what bull$hit bank is that??
talk to your employer about setting up the service at no cost to the employee.
before i had direct deposit i was allways able to cash payroll checks at the bank it was drawn on, i NEVER paid a fee. if his bank tried to charge me i would smash the windows, thats utterly ridiculas. you have to pay to get paid? not me fella!:eek:
btw it was valley national bank.
first atlantic before that.

[Player0]

If you do a google search on ChexSys, I'm glad to see I am not alone. There are some lists of non ChexSys, well behaving banks out there amd I will try one of those. If that fails, I have no problem cashing checks at the grocery store. However, I'm not sure what to do about my wife. She will have more need for a bank than me. In fact, we'll be relying on her credit rating for the rest of our lives I'm guessing, so we're going to do things right on her accounts. It just scares me to think how easy it is for things to go sour unless you maintain a large balance. And that really is the key here isn't it. Banks don't like you if you have a small balance. It's easy to get hurt with no balance to fall back on (and what PISSES me the hell off is that I have a savings account, but they refuse to dig in to that if my checking goes under. So I can only use checking accounts for savings?)

PayPal is handy, but its not all guns and roses without a credit card. Still, it has been the next best thing for someone like me, since it does electronic checking transfers. But as Synth sais, banks don't do electronic well. When you live paycheck to paycheck, you often rely on close-timing. Sometimes theres just no way around it, especially with my savings gone at the moment. And this is when the banks eat you alive, when you have the least money to spare. RE out of state banks, maybe...MAYBE for use with PayPal, since the ATM withdrawel fees will kill you. $1.50-$2.25 per transaction these days, thats usually like 2%-10% of your money gone! Thats almost as bad as State tax. The more I think about it, the more I wonder why I even have a bank?? I would save SOOO much money by not having one.

But I guess my only bank has been KeyBank, and from what I hear there ARE some decent ones out there. So before I feel too burned here, I'll try a recommended bank. Beta test it (hehe) for a while and have my wife go there if it works well.

[spldart]

It's all banks in the Houston metro area. It was phased in over the last couple of years.

I'm my own employer now so it's not an issue but I can't find a bank anywhere in my area that doesn't do that. They all have it posted at the tellers windows and everything. Generally it's 5 bux but some are a little more.