Posted on 10/19/2010 7:10:33 AM PDT by MissTed
When Tim Kindrick went into his bank on September 23, he thought it would be business as usual to deposit a $2,100 insurance check he and his wife received for water damage. Kindrich ultimately got the check deposited, but when he complained about how it was handled, First Citizens froze his debit card and said it didn’t want his business.
“It kind of floored me and my wife, the way we were treated,” says Kindrick, 45, who’s retired from the Army.
He’d been banking with the Forest Lakes branch of First Citizens— motto: “We value relationships”— for about three years, had over $20,000 in his account and had deposited three or four similar checks already this summer with a teller who knew him, he says.
This time, a different teller said she couldn’t deposit the check because it was made out to both Kindrick and his wife Natalie, and the account was in his name only.
Natalie Kindrick had endorsed the check, but not with the special endorsement adding “make payable to Tim Kindrick” the bank wanted, he says. And when Tim Kindrick asked to see the policy, he says the bank manager told him she didn’t have time to look for it, and that this policy was to protect his wife.
The manager called Natalie to confirm her signature on the check, according to Kindrick, and then deposited it. “To me, the accusation is I forged her name and tried to steal the money,” he says.
Still peeved, Kindrick wanted to talk to a supervisor to see a copy of the endorsement policy, and says he was told someone would call him. That didn’t happen, says Kindrick, until five days later, when Jeremy Cox, the area operations manager, called to say that Kindrick could never deposit another third-party check in his First Citizens account.
“When I told him that I wanted to talk to someone higher than him about the decision, he told me, ‘No, the buck stops here,’” says Kindrick.
Kindrick decided he needed a new bank, and when he told Cox, he says the bank rep immediately froze his debit card and said he had 10 days to close his account. “It wasn’t a right to bank with them, it was a privilege,” Kindrick alleges Cox told him.
And on that particular decision, Cox was able to provide the policy: Page 34 of the “Deposit Account Agreement,” which states that the account can be closed at anytime “with or without cause.”
“I’m flabbergasted,” says Kindrick, “and shocked when I requested to talk to a supervisor, and was told no.”
Cox did not return a phone call from the Hook.
“Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to say anything because this speaks to a specific client matter,” says First Citizens spokesman Frank Smith.
In general, does Raleigh-based First Citizens, which has 359 branches in eight states and the District of Columbia, drop clients if they complain too much or the bank finds them annoying?
“We can’t comment,” says Smith. “It’s due to federal privacy law.”
“I can’t even write a check right now,” says Kindrick, who says he fears a check would bounce if it didn’t clear before the 10 days he was given to park his money elsewhere were up. And without the debit card that he estimates using about 50 times a month, Kindrick had to drive to the bank to get money until he opened a new account.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which regulates First Citizens, has seen complaints about banks jump from 6,255 in 2008 to 8,289 in 2009.
And while there’s nothing to prevent a bank from ditching depositors, rejected clients can complain to the feds. “If they send in a written complaint, the FDIC will investigate,” says FDIC spokesman Greg Hernandez.
Meanwhile, Kindrick is still trying to figure out how asking to see a written policy led to First Citizens dumping him. Says Kindrick, “I feel very much like I was retaliated against.”
“But I still would like to hear the bankers side of the story”.
...I agree. “Two sides etc” but personalities have collisions and this guy had a collision. I’m a Realtor and have fired clients. Not for taking too long to buy a home. I have the patience to wait and to deal with most issues. Everybody’s different. But if I get the feeling that I’m wasting my time, I’ll fire the client.
I had a guy 3 years ago that was looking about 30 miles out of town. I did all the driving and clocked about 700 miles total. One time he brought food and chucked chicken bones, banana peels, shells from walnuts out the window as I drove! I asked him nicely to stop. Kept doing it, so I threatened to drop him off at the next light if he did it again. He did. I dropped him off. He was in his 60’s! Acted like 10 year old. He called my broker and threatened to sue. For what?! I’m an independant contractor. He got/went nowhere. As far as I know he’s still renting.
Right! People need to be smart when breaking off a business relationship. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. when I cut BOA loose it took a month i first opened the account with another small local bank and then slowly moved each acct. over making sure no payments were missed. I had a lot of auto payments set up and had to make sure they were transferred to the new bank! One should not make such a move out of anger even though it is hard sometimes to keep your cool!!!
So the wife endorsing the check is not enough?
The harassment finally ended when the collection agency found out they had bought worthless paper.
Now, I still get preapproved credit card offices from Bank of America. I feed everything except the paid reply envelope into the shredder, then scoop out a handful of the shredding, put it in their paid reply envelope and mail it back to them.
You are correct. Revenge is a dish best served cold. See my post #44.
Nope, they can’t prove it’s her signature...many banks will allow it if she’s present to sign but not just randomly.
***While this is true, if I ever needed to carry debt forward a month I would be paying double the interest rate though I’ve been a good customer.***
As far as the bank is concerned, you’re not a good customer because you pay the entire amount due each month, thus depriving them of exorbitant “late payment” charges.
A few years ago, my bank charged me a late payment fee of $50 on a less than $200 bill. I had mailed the payment to them originally with plenty of time for them to get it. It never came back in the mail. Where did it go? I’ll never know. But, now I pay my charge bill at their local bank and GET A RECEIPT to prove that I’ve paid on time.
This is great in theory. I've heard this a thousand times in business. Here's how it usually works in practice:
You "fire" the loudest complainers. Now, you notice the other complainers. After a while, you (or your employees) think, "wow, these people complain an awful lot. Look how little revenue we get from them compared to the effort it takes to hear the complaints. Look, here's how we handled the last set of noisy cheapskates - let's end this relationship so we don't waste so much effort for so little return..."
...and so on, and so on - until your customers get fed up with your lack of attention and all pack up and leave for the welcoming competition ( who make a practice of paying attention to customers). You're left wondering -" what did I do wrong - we addressed the issues directly?"
And this is true far more often than not. Useless managers tend to think in patterns that blame the customer. This article exemplifies the norm, not the exception. The truth folks don't want to hear - it's up to the business to deliver. You're probably better off firing or demoting the people who propose this nonsense as soon as they come up with it - no warnings, no questions asked. Because they should have demonstrated clear thinking by framing the issue without blaming the customer.
If a check is made out to Mr AND Mrs then it needs to go into a joint account. If is is Mr OR Mrs it can go into an account with either name.
This is to prevent one party from taking money that rightfully belongs to both people.
I hated working in banking as I got tired of being verbally abused by customers for following policy. Icky!
Yup - I had a savings account turned into a checking account by my bank. Why? Too many on-line transfers from savings to checking - doesn't matter that it's my money and I should be able to do what I want with it.
I was informed by a teller that if I had made the transfers IN PERSON that they don't count against the limit set by the Federal Government. What is up with that??
Banks won’t cash it either even if the wife endorses it?
Get a life...
Been married for 18 years and cashed hundreds of checks with my wife’s endorsement. Never had a problem.
I had an uncle - retired Army - who was over the top on everything.
Maybe after dealing with THAT bureaucracy for 20+ years, he has a pretty low boiling point.
I also retired from the military - but my experience has been - that the louder they scream, the less likely they are to actually DO anything.
I would have, as others have said, thanked the lady and left. Then, changed providers. Don't get mad - just find someone who wants to do business with you. If you work at someplace unpleasant, find a new job etc.
"If you harbor a grudge, you wind up having to pay the docking fee"
Having dealt with many more banks than most people, here’s my perspective:
1. It is YOUR money in the bank. The bankers seem to lose sight of this little fact. Seeing as how there are damn few banks in the US who aren’t watching their balance sheets melt in front of their eyes every week, they might want to learn how to retain depositors. But, bankers being what bankers are, they think they run the world.
2. Yes, it is common to place restrictions upon third party checks. In my experience, you can’t get two tellers to recite the same restrictions to you on any given day. Tellers are often poorly trained, and often either don’t know the rules, or they invent rules on the fly because they *think* they know the rules. Most banks do a very poor job at training tellers.
Faced with exactly this type of situation, I don’t get churlish with the tellers. Instead, I ask to speak to either the manager or the VP of the bank. Especially when I’m transacting large checks (which this one wasn’t, particularly), and when I’ve driven 100+ miles to deposit a physical check. I’ve even been around this particular loop with tellers in a community property state - ie,
Teller: “We’re protecting your wife.”
Me: “You mean the woman who can take half of everything I own, including that check in your hand right now?”
Teller: “Umm... errr....”
There’s been times I’ve had to inform tellers of the regs that they should have been following, especially concerning large transactions. I don’t particularly appreciate having to tell bankers how to do their jobs with my money, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow their incompetence to result in the IRS putting their sniffers into my business simply because a teller couldn’t be troubled to fill out some paperwork.
3. OK, the guy might have been a jerk. I could believe that, coming from a USA MP. Cop meets bureaucrat, what a wonderful spectator show, right?
Any bank right now needs depositors - lots of them. A news story like this isn’t going to induce anyone else to deposit money into this bank. Bankers are operating in the most challenging environment since the Depression in the US, and yet this bunch of idiots still have the audacity and gall to deliberately piss off a customer with more than 20 large in their bank, and then they double down when the press inquires about the issue?
Not real bright.
Great post.
Do your job, pull your weight, don’t take unnecessary grief.
I bet you run an excellent business.
Bank probably does transactions with hundreds of people a day, out of all of them, this guy was no doubt the jerk of the week or jerk of the month to deal with.
They had a reasonable policy, dealt with the problem in a reasonable manner (calling the wife to confirm), and no doubt would have very muck liked for that to be the END of the matter.
But jerkwad wanted to “see” the policy, file complaints, and otherwise throw his weight around.
Do it somewhere on down the line gramps.
Your bank is willing to take a risk then. Many will especially if you’ve been there a while.
For this guy, this bank wasn’t.
The point is that when they do this (cash checks as you mention), it’s an exception, not the rule.
As I said, they probably didn’t handle it that well. I’ll also maintain we’re only seeing one side of the story.
And yes, tellers aren’t very well trained. If they were, they would get better jobs. Kinda goes with the territory.
Same thing when you find a crappy employee at Home Depot - if he were that knowledgeable he would be working somewhere where they pay more than $9.15 an hour. Granted in the current economy this has changed.
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