I remember a time when you could call a live human, explain your situation to them, and receive some type of leniency, or at least a heartfelt apology for your inconvenience. This isn’t what I’ve seen lately with National City.

Maybe it’s a sign of the times that companies have to be more ruthless and uncaring to their customers in pursuit of profit, but it is really causing me a sickening mix of rage and helplessness.

To make the letter below make sense, I was waiting on a PayPal transfer that took wayyy too long, causing my overdraft problems. The $304 dropped out of my mind after making a few calls and speaking to an incredibly rude “Deborah”, Assistant Manager of the Grosse Ile branch of National City. I simply didn’t have the time to pursue it, even though I got one level higher in the chain with Mr. Mark Fetterman, apparently a National City Regional Exec of some sort. He never answered my voicemail. Nice.

But you know what, had a $34 overdraft charge not been applied to multiple < $5 transactions, I probably wouldn't have been in the hole. That's what kills me. So yesterday a charge was made to my account. $855 for soccer. Well, it was voided the same day it was entered, thus never making it into the batch processing for the next day. Or so one would think. Well, it's a debit card, so I guess what happens is a pre-authorization is placed on the card which holds it against your account for X amount of days. The vendor never received an authorization number because THE FUCKING CHARGE WAS NEVER MADE. Can you tell I'm angry?? Well in the mean time, National City decided I didn't have enough money in my account, and even though THE CHARGE WAS NEVER MADE, they would charge me THREE MORE OVERDRAFT FEES. How awesome of them! Let's add that up to the total they've TAKEN from me over the past month for a total of $392.

My letter to them:

I’ve had an account with National City for 10 years now and recently have had some financial issues that have caused me to overdraft my account. In one incident on or around 5/19, my account was charged a total of 9 overdraft charges at $34.00 each, totalling $304. Had these charges not been applied for small purchases, I would have been well within the charges I made. In my distress, I called my assigned branch in Grosse Ile, MI and spoke to the Assistant Branch Manager; I believe her name was Deborah, but to be honest I’ve done my best to forget that conversation.

She was immediately accusatory, and I could tell when she got off the phone with me she would be able to find something wrong with me personally after she “reviewed my account”. She was not willing to listen to reason, and at that point lectured me in a very rude tone on how “if people kept registers this kind of thing wouldn’t happen”. Until this point I had been polite with her and met nothing but rudeness.

I felt that I was being treated unfairly, so I received the number of one Mark Fetterman, apparently a Regional Executive of some sort. I called and left an extended voicemail for Mr. Fetterman explaining the situation, and never received a reply.

I would like some kind of display of human understanding and leniency from National City at this point to continue my long standing relationship with your business.

At this point, I want either a response that my overdraft charges will be refunded to me, or I want detailed information on how to cancel all of my four accounts with your business.

Sensitivity training for the Assistant Manager of your Grosse Ile branch would be helpful, as well. My parents have multiple accounts at that branch, and in asking my mother how she was treated by Deborah in the past, her only response was “coldly and rudely”.

Now I’m eagerly awaiting a response so I can get all of this shit behind me. $392 is no laughing matter anymore.

If I don’t get a response in “one business day” like their web site claims, I’m blasting out this entire post to their upper management. If I’m less than happy with the response and turnaround time from that, I’m turning all of my accounts over to Chase.