TD Gank
That description above fits TD Bank like a wet tee-shirt on a fifty-cent whore. Let me explain.
Soon after Sam’s mom and I split up, I took out a home equity loan from TD Bank, then known as Commerce. The terms of the loan were good for the time (6% and change, maybe a little lower), fixed rate, and the bank offered a very convenient automatic withdrawal system, which made paying the loan very easy. Sure, I was a little concerned that an automatic withdrawal might lead to late fees because I’m paid on a biweekly basis, which can occasionally fall out of sync with the due date. Like a lot of Americans who think they’re middle class but really working poor, I live paycheck to paycheck, and could see a pretty big risk. But the bank (now TD Bank) assured me a fail-safe was built in.
“The way it works is like this,” the loan officer told me. “Say your payment is due on the 15th of the month, but you haven’t been paid yet. The system will keep trying to withdraw the money over a two-week period. Once you go past that grace period, then we hit you with a late penalty. But you have two weeks to pay.”
That made sense to me, and it’s worked like a charm since October 2005. In that five year period, I have missed maybe two payments, and I was able to cover my butt well in advance.
But this weekend, I noticed that my March payment hadn’t been withdrawn at its usual date, so I called TD Bank to find out what happened. That’s when I found out my February payment hadn’t gone through either, so I asked to be transferred to TD Bank’s loan department.
Once i was on the phone with customer service, I learned that TD Bank, unbeknownst to me, had changed their system back in September 2009, when they finished their merger with good old friendly convenient Commerce bank. Although they claim the grace period still exists, in practice it’s gone: where the system used to go try to withdraw every day for two weeks after the bill was due, now it only tries once. “It’s your responsibility,” the TD Bank customer service rep told me, “to make the payment if it’s late. The system no longer continues to try to withdraw.”
Does the bank call you that day to tell you the payment was missed? No. Do they send an email that day? No.
They send you a letter, which usually arrives two weeks after the fact, and by that time the fee has been assessed. In fact, my February statement said NOTHING about a missed payment, and anyway by that time it was too late.
Do you see the problem here? By entering customers in a “set-it-and-forget-it” system (I typically check every month to make sure the payment was made anyway, but everybody overlooks something once in a while), and then changing that system with no notice, TD Bank sets their loan-holders up like bowling pins to be hit with fees and damaged credit. And for what? An extra $35.00 or whatever per customer. What’s the point of participating in an automatic withdrawal system if you have to check throughout the month to make sure the payment went through to avoid fees? For a bank that claims to be “America’s most convenient bank” that sure isn’t convenient AT ALL.
So I complained vociferously about TD Bank’s thieving dishonest scheme, and demanded A) that my March payment be applied to my February payment; B) that the late fee be waived; C) that they give me an extension on my March payment so i could take THAT amount out of my first April paycheck (this Friday); and D) that they waive that late fee too. I got A-C, but they would not give me D, saying I need to call back (which I will).
But I am not happy about this, but not surprised either: in response to new federal regulations, the banks are retaliating against their customers with a galaxy of new scams and schemes designed to relieve you of your income. So I am fighting back.
Did you know that credit unions offer better interest rates on savings and checking accounts, as well as lower rates on loans? Well, you do now. And what I am doing is waiting for one final check to clear, and then I am moving all of my checking to the Philadelphia Federal Credit Union.
Furthermore, I am going to try my best to get the credit union to give me a loan in the exact amount of the outstanding balance I hold with TD Bank (who also abuse their employees): not only are their interest rates better, but (if they’re able to extend the loan), I’ll be denying TD Bank more than $7,000 in interest.
I’ll keep you posted on the process. TD Bank, who is currently the target of a class action lawsuit from their Long Beach customers for hitting them with a Ponzi scheme, and was also involved in Alan Stanford’s Ponzi scheme as well and has also been sued for screwing customers on gift cards as well as for unfair overdraft fees, tried to gank me on a late fee that never should have been incurred, so now I am determined not only to deny them MY business, but everyone else’s business as well.
April 6th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
This (among other reasons) is why we use a big (”mega”) bank only for day-to-day transactions and not big ticket loan items. Home loan through a small S&L and cars paid in cash.
I hope it works out positively for you.