ComplaintsforUnico Bank

• Initial Complaint

  06/23/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I am a disabled combat veteran receiving ******** disability and awaiting a VA disability ruling. I returned to ******** after 23ears of service and opened an Unico Bank. I am unable to work while awaiting a VA disibility claim and living during a pandemic has been very tough financially. Unico Bank has profited heavily from my misery and hardship. From August 2020 - 23 **** 2022, Unico Bank has taken from my account in the form of NSF and Overdraft fees a total of $5160. $1980-the last 5 months of 2020, $1350 -2021, and $1830- first 6 months of 2022. Just for **** alone, 23 days, the total was $570. Unico bank, while techically not illegal, is continiously manipulating transactions to maximize these fees in the most profitable way possible. For example, for a ACH transaction where my account has fallen briefly below $0 Unico Bank will reject the transaction and charge a NSF fee of $30 with full knowlege these transactions will automatically retrigger themselves a total of 2 more times before they stop. Unico will deny the transaction a second time, $30 NSF charge, and then accept the charge on the final attempt and charge a $30 overdraft fee. All in all pocketing $90 instead of accepting the original charge using overdraft protection and only receiving $30. This also causes me multiple fees from the acccount that is attempting to receive payment in returned item fee charges. Another highly frowned upon but technically not illegal technique Unico Bank uses to maximize the fees they can charge is to reorder your transactions. For example, just this month they reorganized my transaction so severely that 2 $45 payments triggered 4 days before that, the retry payment for both of them, and another payment triggered only that morning, all were processed the same day resulting in -$150 in fees. There is no reason whatsoever for a bank to do this exceot to maximize the fees to their customers. This is the reason Congress moves to stop these practices. I suffer, they profit.

  Business response

  07/13/2022

  We were able to reach out to ************** regarding his account to resolve this matter.  We explained to ************** the banks posting order of items to accounts.  That we post deposits first, followed by debit and ATM transactions which post smallest to largest, then posting ACH and check payments from smallest to largest and lastly posting and fees that occur.  I explained that all transactions post from smallest to largest in an effort to minimize fees.  We discussed how an item would be returned as NSF if there we not enough funds in the account to cover the transaction and that the bank had no control over the number of times that a company may present an item for payment.  He questioned why an item would be returned as NSF but later paid as an overdraft.  I explained that items will post on one business day and the decision to pay or return the item was made the following business day.  If an item was presented and at the time of decisioning there were not enough funds to cover the items it would be returned as non-sufficient, however if when the item was represented for payment on a later date and on that date we were able to see a pending ACH deposit or if he had a deposit that had posted to his account that the item could be paid as an overdraft since we could see a deposit would be posting.  I explained that payment of items was at the discretion of the bank and may not always be guaranteed.  We talked about contacting some of his billers to see if they could move their payment dates back by 1-2 business days as they hit the 1 to 2 days prior to when his direct deposit is received each month.  We also discussed reaching out to another of the billers as they debit his account for multiple transactions on the same day which causes additional fees when funds are not available. He stated that he had not reached out the bank recently regarding his concerns but that he had contacted the bank a few years ago and received a refund of fees in the amount of $300.00. The bank did refund the customer an additional $400.00 in fees in an effort to get his account back on track.  

  
  

  
  *******************************
  Chief Financial Officer

  Customer response

  07/16/2022

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that I have no choice but to accept whatever the bank proposed. It is not as if there were negotiations. They said what they were going to do and that was that. Also, while the response reads well, it is actually full of inaccuracies. Foremost being that between 05/22-05/21, I had exactly 1 "pending" deposit, which was a tax return on 02/22. The bank would have seen 0 pending deposits with which to make a descision to pay overdraft of reject for NSF. The statement of paying based on seeing a deposit is completely false and impossible. Also, while the statement is true as to recieving $300 years ago, I was talking about since then. Since the bank wants to include it then I must state accuratley that there were fees totally nearly $4000 before I received the stated $300 refund of fees. Altogether, during the worst crisis our generation has ever known, when nearly every financial institution either waived these fees or simply discountinued collecting them altogether, Unico Bank continues to collect these fees. From a disabled vetern, just shy of $10,000 altogether since I opened the account and have refunded fees totalling a measly pitiful $700. Also, while reading well that they post transactions from smallest to largest to minimize fees, it is not helping the situation. If I pay for an item and 6 days later Unico bank is still holding it unpaid while items from 1 day ago or 2 days have cleared, how shall I accurately judge my finances? I expect since so much time has passed that the payment must have cleared already and yet then 8 days after triggering the payment it is rejected for NSF. I still incure a $30 charge from Unico but guess what? The company waiting to receive payment gets rejected, they charge not only a return payment fee but also a late fee charge because of how much time my payment sits unpaid in Unico's pending payments. If this 8 day period happens to cross over into another month, guess what? not only is there a late fee and return unpaid fee, but I now must pay a monthly interest fee with those added costs included from the month before now added to the new months ****. As stated before, there is a reason congress moves to eliminate these unreasonable and costly fees that Unico bank continues to profit from and when there is an opportiunity to ease the burden, a total of $400 is all that is returned. For June 2022 alone, 1 month, Unico collected $570 in these fees and cost me $245 in fees from returned and late payment fees. 
  Sincerely,
  
  *******************

• Initial Complaint

  11/21/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On October 4th, a charge to ****** streaming services went through on my account. The charge was for more than my account balance, resulting in an overdraft on my account. The $30 overdraft fee was applied to my account. I have specifically requested to NOT have overdraft protection on my account to avoid any charge going through which I can not cover. I emailed multiple times, made multiple phone calls and visited in person multiple times and asked for an explanation for this charge. The first explanation was "it was a charge to your debit card, those have to go through." I asked if that meant I could go to Wal Mart and charge any amount I wanted on my card and it go through. The answer was "No, if you do not have the money in your account, it will be declined." So I followed with "why then did this charge go through?" No answer. The second explanation was "if there are two charges at the same time, it can result in an overdraft." I asked if there was any record of a second charge on that day. There was not. The most recent transaction was on September 29th. The next transaction following that was on October 19th. The next explanation was "if it is an automatic renewing charge, it will go through." I asked why then I have other streaming services that are declined, but not this one. I received multiple promises that I would be called with an explanation, those never happened. I had to email multiple times to even get a response, and that response was simply to call or show up in person. Almost two months later and I still can not get an explanation for this over draft or any explanation on how to not let it happen again.

  Business response

  12/09/2021

  Dear Mr. *******:

  We recently received a letter from the Better Business Bureau regarding a complaint that you submitted on 11/21/2021 and was assigned an ID of ********.

   

  The complaint was regarding an overdraft fee that was assessed on a charge to ****** Streaming Services. Our records indicate that you did in fact opt out of overdraft protection on you account as well as opting out of having overdraft coverage on your ATM and debit card transactions. This opt out applies to "one-time" debit card transactions as well at ATM withdrawals. This means if you try to do an ATM withdrawal or make a one-time purchase your card "should" be declined. I say "should" because certain types of business may not pre-authorize the full transaction amount which could allow the transaction to process even though the funds may not be available to cover the transaction. However, even in this case you would not be assessed an overdraft fee for a one-time purchase or an ATM withdrawal even if the transaction was approved and your account became overdrawn.

   

  However, the opt-out does not cover recurring automatic electronic payments. This means that when you sign up for these types of payments the bank can assess an overdraft fee even if your account is opted out of the overdraft protection. By setting up the recurring transaction you have granted permission to that company or business to assess a fee to your account for as part of a service agreement with that company. These recurring transactions are not considered a "one-time" transaction.

   

  The ****** Streaming transaction in question is considered a recurring transaction and can be assessed an overdraft fee as such. On your statement you can determine if the transaction is a recurring transaction because the description will show as "POS RCR Payment". I do show that you have multiple services setup as recurring payments. I would recommend reviewing your statement for these types of transactions so that you are aware which services are setup as such. I am including the most recent statement from your account with this letter so that you may identify these types of transactions.

   

  There is no way of preventing these types of transaction from getting paid other than to not setup any recurring transactions using your debit card. However, even setting them up as an ACH transaction by providing the company with your routing and account number instead of your debit card may result in an overdraft or return item fee. The best way to prevent charges is to familiarize yourself with schedule in which the company's processing payments so that you can be sure to have funds available when the transactions do process.

  
  

  We understand that this has been very frustrating for you not getting directed to the correct person or department to get an answer to your question. As such we will refund the $30.00 overdraft fee as a one-time courtesy. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at ************ or email me at **********************.

   

  Sincerely,

   

   

  ******** ******* *** ***** **** *****************

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩