Consumer complaints about Fleet Bank

Fleet Bank

Besides the grousing below about Fleet's banking services we have a growing chorus of complaints about Fleet's credit card practices.

Holly of Brighton, MA, writes (5/4/01):
This seems to happen all the time with this bank, but I'll give the most recent example. I deposited a paycheck on Friday (I'm told it was after 5, but I don't honestly remember). At the time I had a few hundred in the bank. The paycheck was for over a thousand. I then spent some money on the weekend, and on Monday, I was still fine. On Tuesday a check went into the bank that went over the amount of money that was "officially" in the bank. They said that because I deposited my check on a Friday, they wouldn't get it till Monday and it would not be cleared until Wednesday. I didn't know this at the time. On Wednesday, they charged me $50 for insufficient funds, but that's when my check was getting cleared. I just don't see why they can get away with charging these obscene amounts. Plus I technically had the money in the account, but they just don't care. They say that legally they are allowed and it's a legitimate fee.

I just don't have a lot of money and to lose $50 when they already charge between $20 and $30 a month for normal use is insane. I had the money in the bank the week before and they said it hadn't gone through. Smaller banks cant get away with taking this much money away from their clients. It almost since Fleet is sooooo big, they don't care about the individual people that use the bank and just take as much money as they want. Plus the costs go up by $5 every year. And you can't even use a little bank because Fleet it buying them all out. I used to be with a normal bank but got forced into being with Fleet when they bought them. I feel that someone should control the banks a little more so that the individual people out there don't get their money stolen from them the way that this bank is doing.

On Nov. 3, 2000, Jean of Boston wrote:
Over the past few months, I had been withdrawing funds from my Fleet checking account and transferring funds to a newly-opened internet bank account. On October 27th, I withdrew my last $20 from my Fleet account and then closed my account with Fleet later that afternoon (I had no outstanding checks to clear) at which time the bank employees gave me the 88 cents that was remaining in my bank account.

I soon received a letter from Fleet stating that I had overdrawn my closed account since they had not applied the $4 service fees for that month and so the $20 that I had withdrawn from my ATM was "overdrawn" -- presented for payment against insufficient funds" -- and retroactively slapped with a $25 fee. Moreover the 88 cents that was given to me when I closed my account was also slapped with a $25 fee for overdrawing on insufficient funds -- for a total of $50 in penalty fees, just for closing my account.

Jean should write to the bank and explain what happened. We'd be surprised if they didn't forgive the $50 in fees, which indeed are uncalled for.

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