[braillediver]

A Rant and a Question.

OK so I set up a separate account with Bank of America for my personal banking and kept an older Bank of America account to be used exclusively with Internet Transactions.

I explicitly asked when opening the second \ new account that the old account not be able to pay out anymore than what’s in that account. The bank jerk told me numerous times that the lowest limit was $25 and they wouldn’t pay out any more than that.

OK I’m safe, I’m Practice Safe Banking, I’m being Proactive………

But

I made a mistake and used PayPal to buy some vacuum tubes out of my old (Internet use) account which only had $30 in it. It was then overdrawn and went into Over Draft for a balance of -$145.

Surprised but it’s OK I made the mistake. So I called the bank to talk to them since I was surprised they paid it out. I asked since the didn’t pay attention to the $25 Over Draft limit how much would they pay out. They told me they didn’t know what amount could be paid out and if it went into negative territory they would put a block on my other account for the amount I was negative.

So there’s no isolation between accounts. Which is reasonable but they never told me this. They said they would help me recover any fraudulent payouts. I argued that was after the fact and I'd like to do as much as possible to prevent any problems.

So the only way to be completely safe is to have the 2 accounts with 2 completely different banks. I think but Bank of America couldn’t verify that if I closed my personal checking and savings account that they’d be less likely to pay out Over Drafts above the $25.


So I guess the only real safe way to do this is to have 2 different accounts with 2 different banks?

I glad I made the mistake and found this out.


Any other Banking gotchas I should know about? Any recommendations for Safe Banking besides getting the 2 different accounts with different banks?

Can anyone recommend a good bank? Washington Mutual is the next biggest here.


Thanks Mitch

 

[JMT]

Quote:

The bank jerk told me numerous times that the lowest limit was $25 and they wouldn’t pay out any more than that.

He was probably referring to a "memo" post provision within their system. Automatically overdrawing an account (with the exception of the NSF fees) up to a certain dollar amount.
Quote:

I made a mistake and used PayPal to buy some vacuum tubes out of my old (Internet use) account which only had $30 in it. It was then overdrawn and went into Over Draft for a balance of -$145.

Here is a caveat that the "bank jerk" probably did not know: The Manager (or the Service Manager in the Manager's absence) does have an overdraft authority. They can make pay/return decision on any account showing on their overdraft report up to the amount of the overdraft authority. They use this authority based on a few factors. How long the individual has been a customer, the overall relationship of the customer, how much the overdraft will be, what is the probability that the overdraft will not be covered, to name a few. The banker will make a pay decision assuming that the customer wants the item paid and they miscalculated their balance, or that a deposit was made and did not post correctly, or that a deposit is forthcoming and the customer simply did not make it into the bank in time. Whatever the case, the Manager makes the pay decision in the interest of customer satisfaction. Rarely, in my experience, does the customer not want the item paid. If they did, they normally place a stop payment on the individual item.

They will make a return decision if the customer is an O.D. regular, the amount is over their overdraft limit, or the probablility of loss is high.
Quote:

They told me they didn’t know what amount could be paid out and if it went into negative territory they would put a block on my other account for the amount I was negative.

That doesn't sound right to me. The only time the bank can use "right of offset" is when the overdraft becomes a pending loss. And usually the only time it becomes a pending loss is after a good faith effort on the part of the bank to effect collection of the overdraft amount. I would speak to the Banking Center Manager about that.
Quote:

So I guess the only real safe way to do this is to have 2 different accounts with 2 different banks?

Assuming you wanted the actual item paid, having an account at two different banks would not satisfy your issue. If the bank truly would place a freeze on your other account for a lousy $145.00 overdraft that is less than a week old, I would talk to the Manager.
Quote:

Any other Banking gotchas I should know about? Any recommendations for Safe Banking besides getting the 2 different accounts with different banks?

Don't write checks, or authorize debits for more than the balance in your account. If you do, whether it be intentional or in error, have some kind of overdraft protection in place. The insufficient funds fees are a killer.

I worked for Bank of America for 25 years, and am now a branch manager for a small community bank. I hope this was helpful.

 

[braillediver]

“I hope this was helpful.”

Yes quite helpful.

So my ultimate concern was \ is say PayPal disputes where PayPal takes back the money out of my checking account that some one paid me while it is in dispute. Like I withdrew the payment from my checking account so the balance is 0 and PayPal tries to remove the payment to hold while the transaction is in dispute. I wanted to shield my personal checking and savings account from those problems- the horror stories people tell of PayPal taking back money while the transaction is in dispute.

But it turns out with the 2 accounts in the same bank there’s no real protection or separation.

I’m glad I made the mistake- forgot I’d opened the new account and just sent payment without checking the balance of the old account.

So are the horror stories just that- stories? I want to pay my obligations it’s just the idea that if someone Disputes a PayPal transaction that PayPal can reclaim money I’ve already sent to my checking account and if that happens my other \ new personal checking account could be effected?

Oops "I worked for Bank of America for 25 years"
No offense meant by the Bank J comment it’s just that I told the guy 4 times why I was opening the new account and I didn’t want them to be able to pay anything if there was insufficient funds in my old account which I wanted to use only for Internet Transaction. He said it was a great idea and only $25 was at risk.

I think the solution is to just buy more audio gear then there’ll be No Money in the bank to worry about.


Mitch