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.”
Outrageous.
Relax buddy, you're not being robbed or raped.
But No! He has been disrespected, & that is worse than death. (sarc)
I believe a business has the right to refuse service to anyone who is disruptive or annoying.
I do think freezing the debit card was premature & wrong. It should only have been done when Kendrick formally closed his account. But Kendrick was stupid to threaten the bank with closing the account. Don't threaten anything, just do it.
But then, Kendrick persists, when he could have immediately opened another account with another bank. Yes, he would be w/o a debit card for a time, but life is full of little inconveniences. Man up, Kendrick, & quit whining. Cash in you pocket works just as well as a debit card.
Advice to Kendrick:
1. Don't argue with the bank or any retailer. Take your money somewhere else, immediately.
2. If you trust your wife, make it a joint account. If you are suddenly incapacitated or die, your wife will have access to the funds. W/o a joint account, the funds are potentially unavailable for months. And if I was Kendrick's wife, no way would I let him deposit my money in an account to which I have no access.
3. If you don't trust your wife, divorce her.
You’ve obviously run a business, as have I.
I looked upon all customers who complained as a PR opportunity. Clearing up whatever pissed them off never failed to pay in the long run.
I don’t understand why he didn’t just take the check home and ask his wife to write “Make payable to...” on the back. The bank was just trying to protect his wife from fraud and themselves from liability. I bet he makes a stink about showing ID at the drive-up window too.
Banks with enormous amounts of excess reserves at the Federal Reserve probably don't need a bunch of depositors (especially pains) right now.
Well, experienced tellers might make an exception to well known custmers for small amounts but the general policy is that both should be in front of the teller. We have not always done that in our small bank but a couple of years ago a woman said she had not given her husband authority. In the mean time he closed the account so we had no recourse & had to give her her money. There can be divorces involved & if we don’t know it we can get caught in the middle or it could just be a straight up attempt to get some extra money. If the wife had been with him she would have been on camera & not able to make that claim. A few bad apples can ruin it for everyone.
I used to like banking but between the small time cons & the gov’t regs it’s not what it used to be!
Why?
Say you and your wife are having problems. She has a check made out to her for $300 that she signs and leaves on her dresser.
You run to the bank and cash it.
A few days later, she lets the person who wrote the check know that she lost it, they inform her that it was cashed.
She goes to the bank, they’re able to confirm that YOU came in and they cashed it for you.
She makes a claim against the bank and they eat the $300 because nobody can prove that her intent was to cash it since she wasn’t present at the time.
THAT is why it’s done that way.
BTW do you literally mean “cash” or depositing to her account or your joint account?
Depositing is different - as long as it goes into an account with her name, no harm no foul.
Exactly. I don’t see why he is complaining. As soon as he said he wanted to leave, the bank dropped him.
There are laws against that. Why should the bank assume you are guilty?
I’ve said it on FR before but I’ll say it again, using a credit union is an entirely different experience than using a bank. A bank basically tries to screw you out of a dollar here and five dollars there. A credit union simply allows you to do the transactions one expects to do without fees etc.
I feel your pain. I used to work as a manager for a food service company. One customer who managed a restaurant at a local hotel used to complain about everything we made for her. After this went on for several months she called late on a Friday afternoon (before a busy holiday weekend) complaining that she didn’t like the meat we had shipped to her. This despite the fact that I had already replaced her original order earlier that day. I explained that it was too late to redo it yet again. She berated me on the phone so I said I would come pick up the “f***ed up meat” as she called it.
I personally drove over there and picked up all the meat and gave her a receipt. She asked when the replacement meat would arrive. I told her as far as I was concerned she would never receive anything from us again.
They had no meat entrees for the holiday weekend. Oh well.
Are they “assuming guilt” if they ask for ID to cash a check? How’s this any different?
They’d rather have a pissed off customer because they DIDN’T cash a check than one pissed if they DID - the latter costs them a lot more money.
And what laws are you referring to? A check is a contract, negotiable by the person it’s paid to the order of.
Can’t disagree in general, but I can’t say a credit union would have done much differently in this case.
What do you mean how is it different? The bank is assuming the customer forged the spouse’s signature. Or stole the endorsed check from his wife. Instead of taking the customer’s word that everything is on the up and up.
If you are telling me the Federal Government forces that banks to take this position then it is the Federal Government that is being idiotic. The explanation to the customer should be “This is beyond our control. It is a Federal rule. If you do not approve of this rule you could call your congressman because he is the responsible party, not this bank.”
What part of “not wanting to eat a cashed check” do you not get?
Marital disputes are VERY common. It’s not a federal law, other than a check being a contract, which would be the basis of a claim against the bank.
Turn it around. Say you signed a check and laid it on the dresser. Your wife, who you’ve been fighting with, stops by the house, grabs it, and cashes it.
Are you gonna complain to the bank? Damn right you would, and the bank would have to pay you back.
Oh, that's rich. Sure, I guess they should also take the customer's word that the check from that Nigerian prince you got for $454,004.29 that you have to wire back to him is good too, right?
Your bank does it (cashes wife's checks) for you, because they DO trust you. Be thankful for that. Most good banks would do the same for a long relationship. My point was simply that they don't have to and it's not their official policy for the reasons I've stated.
I got to Wells Fargo. They don’t know me from Adam.
Ding, ding, ding we have a winner.
Used to do several grand a month with Discover, paid them every month, so no interest payments.
They got crappy so I cut back from 3-4 K per month to 1-2 Hundred/month.
Oh, do they want us back now.
We get love notes from them almost every month.
Too bad.
Hell no I wouldn’t. How could I be mad a the bank for cashing a check I endorsed. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
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