Whoa Home Depot
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009I can’t believe it! My Home Depot credit card interest rate jumped from around 11 last month to around 19 percent this month. What gives? I’ve sent them this message:
The interest rate on this account changed from approximately 11% to approximately 19%. Please change it back.
Their response:
Thank you for your request.
Since the terms on all of our accounts have changed, this is your new APR and can’t be changed back.
Sincerely,
Home Depot Credit Services.
That’s bad.
I just hit with two overdraft fees on my Bank of America checking account. How much? $35 each. That really hurts. I mean that really, really hurts.
Does anyone else feel that those fees are a little bit excessive?
UPDATE December 18, 2007: Bank of America sent out a notice informing me of the overdraft. Citizens Bank did the same thing in the past when I overdrew my account with them, but Bank of America has a return feedback form, as well as some “helpful hints” to try and avoid the overdraft occurring again.
My issue with the overdraft fee is that I feel it is excessive. $35 is a lot of money, and I believe they should only charge once per day. I used to have overdraft protection with a saving account, but if I recall correctly, they charge $10 for the transfer!
While I’m waiting to get a message back from customer service, I did a little reading of the fine print for the small business economy checking, and I found that there can be a fee for the business economy checking. It can be waived in a variety of ways:
$2,500 minimum daily balance
$7,500 average monthly balance
of if you have a Personal Advantage account with Bank of America. If you have any personal account with Bank of America, the fee is waived for two years. So maybe that’s why I’m now getting the fee, but still I’m confused - their website says the fee is only $13 if it isn’t waived.
UPDATE December 2, 2007: They sent this back to me:
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for your inquiry dated 12/1/07 regarding your Monthly Maintenance fee. We will be happy to assist you.
The Advantage relationship requires an average daily balance of $15000.00 or higher in one checking account, Regular Savings account, or Custom Savings account in order to waive the $25.00 monthly service charge. This monthly service charge may also be waived by maintaining a $20000.00 average daily balance in a checking account that is linked with a savings account, Money Market Savings account, or a CD or IRA
account.We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We value you as a customer and appreciate your business. If we may be of further assistance, please contact us again by e-mail. Thank you for choosing
Bank of America.Sincerely,
Craig Gentry
Bank of America
But I don’t have an “Advantage relationship” - I only have the economy checking. What gives, this response makes very little sense to me.
UPDATE December 4, 2007: After several back and forth emails with Bank of America representatives, I never was able to figure out what a “Business Advantage Relationship” was. Every time I told them I had an economy account, they concurred, and said I had an advantage relationship. When I asked what that was, they told me what an advantage checking account was, resulting in a vicious cycle. I even searched online for what it was, but only found one site which referenced it, and it wasn’t a Bank of America page.
In the end, I canceled the advantage relationship, and had the fee refunded. Then the question was whether or not the CD I have with Bank of America would count towards my minimum daily balance to waive the fee for my economy checking account. I chatted with a Bank of America CSR through their website and was informed that the minimum balance is calculated by only the amounts in the checking account. Too bad. Its probably a good idea to have a minimum of $2500 in my checking account anyway, or $3000 for that matter. Then if it goes below that amount, I can transfer funds into it.
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