Thank Goodness we bailed out the banks or Remember Read the Fine print.

[dnalexander]

I spent a lot of time on the phone this week with the Bank of America and the owner of some cabins at Lake Tahoe. I learned a lesson on why you may not want to use your Visa Check Card Online to reserve a hotel room. I reserved 4 cabins for a week up at Tahoe for an upcoming trip to hold a reservation while a check was in the mail to cover the deposit. By a computer error the cabin operator put the card through for authorization several times putting a very large authorization hold on my checking account funds while he waits for the check. The authorization holds froze more money than was in the account. I continued using my debit card for many small transactions over the next few days. Wednesday I went online to download my bank statement and to my surprise my available balance was zero and my statement balance was full of many $35 overdraft fees (Not Non sufficient fund fees). I called the cabin guy and he said it was not his error it was the banks that he only put a hold on once. So I called B of A and they said it was the fault of the cabin guy for authorizing the card so many times and I still owed the overdraft fees. That conversation took 30 minutes but I learned a lot about overdraft at the banks whim even though you have not signed up for it. I called back and spent 20 minutes on the phone with the cabin guy and he put through a reversal of the authorization holds. I called B of A back and they said they got the info. but I still owed the fees and that the next day would get another round of fees for having a negative balance that was made up only of fees. Had the fees not been there now that the extra authorization holds were removed I would have a positive balance. B of A said I still owed the fees even though while I always had money in my account. (Since authorization holds only freeze money not remove it from your account.) To shorten this long story I will finish things up. I called the CEO of B of A and talked to his assistant. All fees were reversed since it was an error and I was told my balance would be back to normal in a day or two. That call took 3 minutes. Actually the reversal went through in a few hours. The moral of the story is talk nicely to the bank and remember to read the fine print on all that stuff the bank sends you when you open your account.

David

[dnalexander]

I could have but I don't use my credit card it sits in a drawer. I never anticipated that the multiple authorizations error would happen. Lets say I learned a valuable lesson that could have been an expensive lesson had the bank not waived the fees, which they did not have to do. My mistake. Lesson learned , read the fine print.

David