I went into the Commerce Street branch this morning after realizing there had been fraudulent activity on my debit card. Three transactions, totaling almost $800, not made by me were pending.
The first gentleman I sat with was extremely friendly and tried to be helpful. He explained that I had to wait for the pending transactions to post and then I would need to fill out an affidavit to have the funds returned to my account. This was expected to take 10-14 days. I was also going to have to cancel my debit card, and it would take 5-7 days to get a replacement. This person said he would talk to the bank manager when he got off his conference call, as he was sure the manager would be able to help, and in some cases they would provide some "provisional cash".
When the manager came out, he didn't offer any help at all. I let him know I was going to have to withdraw some cash before they cancelled my debit card, as I only had $5 in my wallet. The manager told me that if I did so, I'd be charged an overdraft fee because the fraudulent transactions had put my account into a negative state. I asked if he would waive the overdraft fee due to the circumstances. He said he couldn't do so because if I were to withdraw money knowing that the account had a negative balance then I would have to pay an overdraft fee.
Further, shouldn't the bank have caught this before they charges went through? I feel that $800 of charges at Lego Land in California by a middle-aged woman living in MA should have sent up a red flag read more