Problems with a savings account

[skalor]

This is my first time here, but I need some advice on a problem I am facing. I had a saving account that I had a car payment automatically withdrawn from a few years ago. The last time I used the account was a deposit in January of 2005 when the car loan was paid off. There was a residual balance of $19 left in the account at the time. In the meantime I moved, got married, bought a house, had a baby, and completely forgot about the account. I never changed my address with the bank so I never received any statements as well. Just yesterday I remembered I had the account so I looked into and it was an odd coincidence that it was only closed last friday with a -$154 balance. That's right, I left an account open with a postive balance for 2 years and through service fees the account reached a negative one-hundred-fifty-four dollar balance. I talked to them on the phone and here's what happened. The account only went negative from their service fees just recently, but once it reaches a -$10 balance they charged me $5 a day for almost 30 days before closing the account. I could possible understand this if I overdrew the account, but their own service fees forced the account negative. I've talked to the bank manager about this and she did not offer any help and just stated that this is their policy. Is there anything else I can do besides going over her head to a regional manager??

[jeffrey]

I had this happen to me once while living in Japan. The account I had that had no fees started charging them while I was in Japan and by the time I got home to see they had taken over $150 out of the account without me ever knowing.

I was able to get them waived this way, but not sure if it will work in your case. May be worth a try of you have some extra money around. I said the reason that I had looked at the account again was I was planning to place more money in their bank. If they think you will be a good long time customer, they have a reason to waive the fee. If they know all you want to do is close the account, they have no reason to help you out.

If you explain you are willing to open a $xx CD for 6 months if they waive the fee, they may be much more willing to do so. You can complain and go higher pleading your case which may or may not be effective.