Complain about a product or service

Bank of the West

Lazaro of Anaheim, CA January 9, 2009

Lazaro of Anaheim CA (01/09/09)
Bank of the West deceives customer by making their beleive their available balance is what the customer actually has avalilable in his/her checking acct when in reality, it is either a negative balance or others transactions hasn't been processed.

I did an inquiere recently at a Bank of the West ATM, and the machine gave the amount available. I made some purchases based on that amount, to find out later, that there were other pervious charges that were not reflected in the available balance even when I used a debit card. On top of that, they charged twice for the same transaction.

They charged me a 105 dollars fee!

Kevin of Redondo Beach, CA December 30, 2008

Kevin of Redondo Beach CA (12/30/08)
The Bank of The West branch in Redondo Beach, CA is the WORST! Bad customer service, unreliable information to customers, ugly people (Lies), and just plain rude.

Victoria of Castaic, CA October 7, 2008

Victoria of Castaic CA (10/07/08)
Four transactions were paid online and posted the next day, two days later a check came through which would have cause the account to become overdrawn, but the bank paid the check and charged each online transaction a overdraft fee of 32.00 each totaling 128.00 If they would not have paid the check I would have only owed 89.00 I requested an investigation and was told by customer service over the phone I would receive a letter from the bank within 5-7 business explaining what happen. I never heard from them. I called a second time. Still no letter of explaination. The only letter they sent me was to let me know my account was overdrawn by 185.00.

As a result my account is overdrawn 185.00.

Dina of Garden Grove, CA August 27, 2008

Dina of Garden Grove CA (08/27/08)
After having my wallet stolen I switched Bank of the West branches for convenience. I have had nothing but problems since! My new Bank of the West branch routinely puts through debits prior to direct deposits in order to charge the maximum amount of overdraft fees as possible! The first time I received an overdraft notice it had the same date of the direct deposit. These debits came through. I took these notices in to my old branch (where this never happened!) and the teller agreed that this did not seem right so she called customer service for me. They would not speak to her on my behalf and were rude to me as well. She suggested I go to my new branch.

When I went in to complain I was told that the charges actually came through the night before but are posted the next morning before the direct deposit was posted so my account was negative. I showed her the NSF notice with the date on it and she still stuck to her story. (they have since re-worded the notices) I also pointed out that some checks were honored and some were not and she told me it was up to the manager whether to honor the checks or not. Even though I had the money to cover them from the direct deposit. What?

I could not believe the differences from branch to branch and how you are at the mercy of someone who just decided hmmm...I'm not going to honor that check This practice cost me a huge amount of NSF fees as well as fees from the persons I wrote checks to not to mention the embarrassment. It was a viscious cycle of trying to dig out of a hole that seemed so unreasonable on Bank of the West's part!

The fees were in the hundreds of dollars as well as the fees from the people I wrote checks to that Bank of the West decided not to honor.

David of Stockton, CA August 13, 2008

David of Stockton CA (08/13/08)
Wrote check on June 15, 2005 placed stop payment on item October 26, 2005 because I paid the person cash, because he said he never got my check. Three (3) years later he cashed my check and Bank of the West at first said they would take care of it then they said NO. Then they said only if I can prove that I paid in cash they would return my money.

The transaction overdrafted into my savings account, Bank of the West charged me 10.00 (they made money off it) It has taken me three days to deal with this, multiple phone calls, red tape.

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