To Compass Bank:

I understand that your employees regularly scan the web, trying to tactfully handle customer disservice cases before your institution's image and reputation become tarnished. In this post, I am being as honest and blunt as I can, and just so that you know how serious I am, I am providing enough of my personal contact information for any Compass employee to look up all of my banking history:

Name: James True Merrill
Address: 248 Colonial Homes Dr
Atlanta GA, 30309
Account: ********6282

Almost a year ago, I walked into my local Compass branch and set up an automatic withdrawal from my checking to a savings account. Every week, only twelve dollars would transfer from my checking (after seven months, I used this money to help pay for an engagement ring). In May, I graduated from college with a B.S. in Chemistry, and moved to Atlanta to start in the Ph.D. program at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before moving to Atlanta however, I went back to my bank and asked that the automatic transfer be stopped.

Compass Bank does not operate in the state of Georgia, so once I arrived in Atlanta, I had to open an account with another bank. I zeroed out my account with Compass, however I was unaware that the automatic transfer had NOT been removed as I requested. Until recently, I had been a fairly satisfied customer with Compass, and at the time I still wanted to keep my accounts open, but not use them for everyday expenses.

But for the last three months, the automatic transfers from my checking into my savings had still been occurring, charging my empty checking account twelve dollars and depositing nothing into the savings account. My account was slammed automatically with over sixty dollars in fees per week, totalling out to over five hundred dollars in charges. When I became aware of the situation, I immediately called the Compass hotline (remember, there are no branches in the state of Georgia) and tried to get the issue resolved over the phone. The service representative was able to stop the automatic transfers, but due to company procedures, referred the issue of my account's fees to the customer care division. I was informed that I would receive a call within two business days to discuss the fees on my account.

A week later I received a call during class from Compass. The voicemail from the representative informed me that "a decision regarding my account had been made" and that "it was determined that there was no bank error". The bank was willing to remove $120 of the fees, yet over the last week, my account had once again been slammed with another sixty dollar charge. After repeated calls to the Compass hotline, I was informed that the staff member who had made the decision could not be reached, and that a message would be left for her to call me back. Needless to say, I never received a call back.

Honestly Compass, is it too much to ask for me to be able to speak to someone who can fix this situation? I have a very fixed schedule - I can't stop in the middle of class or my teaching duties to talk to your representative at their convenience. And I know that customer service deals with a large number of uncooperative and angry people who are unwilling to take responsibility for their mistakes. I am willing to discuss and reach an agreement on this issue, however I have not yet been able to talk to anyone who can do anything for my situation. All I ask is for a bank to take responsibility for something that they screwed up! I don't have time to jump through hoops, I don't have the money to pay for your absurd and unfair charges. I have my own bills to pay, my own career to build, and my own wedding to plan.

So if you are a Compass employee reading my story, I challenge you, look up my account information and contact me. I hope that Compass is able to resolve the situation like the professionals they claim to be.

And for those others out there reading this, just know that in this case, Compass was never there for me. As consumers we have tremendous power to choose the goods and services that we use. I am sorry to say, that after eight years of banking with Compass, I am wholly dissatisfied with the bank.

Sincerely,

James True Merrill
Graduate Student
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
901 Atlantic Dr
Atlanta GA, 30332

Compass bank is a ripoff because people keep getting a hold of my account number. The first account was broken into and made charges on my account that I did not authorize. Well, I filed dispute forms and they took care of it and refunded me the NSF fees. Then I closed that account so nothing else would happen to me and then opened a new account.

Everything was going smoothly for a little while, so I decided to start having my payroll check direct deposited. I had made a payment to my phone company, and at the time I had funds to do so. Then some credit card company that I never heard of had withdrew $12 from my account which caused my payment to the phone company to come back and cause my account to overdraft.

Now I have 3 NSF fees on my account for no reason at all. I think that Compass bank shares account information with people.

I recently went to Compass and deposited $150 into my account. After having made that deposit, I made a charge to pay my cell phone payment.

They then assessed numerous NSF fees to my account and said it was because I made the deposit after the "cut off". I pushed for when they processed the credits and they will only say "before the cut off" which turns out is between when the bank opens and 3pm. Business hours.

They post debits in real time and then only post credits during business hours. The customer service was also very rude about the whole matter!!

Despite having receipts for the credit, which came before the debit, also have a receipt for that, they would not reverse the charges.

My account never even showed going negative after all the NSF fees. Positive before the deposit, and positive after the debit and fees. But yet I got numerous fees. How are you NSF if you keep a positive balance and put money in before you spend it?

I am referring the matter to the District Attorney's office for the state of Texas.

AVOID COMPASS BANK!!

I have been banking with Compass Bank for almost 8 years. I have been hit with over $500 dollars in insufficient fund fees in a 1 month period. I racked up $152 dollars in NSF fees before I received a phone call from Compass Bank customer service. Unfortunately for me I was out of town at the time the call came. Before I left town I deposited my pay check. After receiving 4 NSF fees on my account I was NOT even informed by the teller that my account was already in the negative. Now to make things worse even after depositing my check I continued to rack up hundreds of dollars in NSF fees. So to add insult to injury if your account is in the negative for 6 consecutive days an extended overdraft fee of $38 dollars is imposed. On the 7th calendar day my account remained overdrawn and therefore Compass imposed an additional $7 for each additional day it was overdrawn. This is absolutely RIDICULOUS. When I contacted customer service about my situation they only refunded back to my account $76. Please keep in mind that they ripped me off for over $500 dollars. DO NOT BANK WITH COMPASS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE RIPPED OFF! COMPASS BANK SUCKS!

I'm writing to warn any prospective customers about Compass Bank's shameful practices. I have read quite a few reports here about people who have been unfairly charged NSF fees. While that scenario does not apply to me (I'm very careful not to allow my account to get low and I never write checks--ever), just as a customer who has been banking with them for a couple of years, I have some complaints.

First of all: I always deposit cash. Liquid cash. Their policy is that even though they have your cash IN HAND, they HOLD the funds until midnight of the following business day.

That means that if I walk into the bank with $1, 000.00 at 9:00 AM on Monday and deposit it into my account, I don't see a DIME of that money until 12:00 AM on TUESDAY. I don't understand that. There are no checks to clear, there is no paperwork to do, nothing to verify and no one who needs to be contacted. It's MY money, it's in MY account, it should be MINE to use right away, right?

No. And if you make a purchase before midnight, you WILL get dinged with an NSF fee. This should be illegal.

ADDITIONALLY; they hold your cash an EXTRA day if you deposit it using the ATM machine. That means that if you deposit that $1k on Monday at 9AM, they don't check it until close of business on Monday afternoon. They 'process' the money on TUESDAY and then post it to your account on WEDNESDAY...supposedly at midnight. This is still cash, we're talking about--liquid cash.

Secondly: I have had CASH TRANSFERS into my account from other places. This means the liquid assets are given directly to them from another bank. The money is cleared and subtracted immediately from the other account. In addition to the 'until midnight' hold policy, it is ALSO their policy to charge YOU, the recipient, $15.00 to receive the funds. That's right: they CHARGE you to keep your money.

In the TWO times I've done this; they made a mistake and charged me TWICE for the $15.00 fee. I can not get them to reverse this. I have read their documentation thoroughly and they were supposed to charge it ONCE but they did it twice and I can never get someone on the phone with the authority to fix their mistake. So I simply do not perform transfers in this way anymore. They got to keep my extra $30.00 for free, it seems.

Now, let me also add that yesterday at around 3:00 PM I made an $800.00 deposit into my account. When I deposited the money, I confirmed again with the teller 'Today is 13 May. I will see this money in my account at 12:00 AM on 14 May, correct?'

'That's right.' she told me.

'Okay, just making sure because I have a purchase to make first thing in the morning and I've had it happen where I checked at midnight and the money wasn't there before.'

'No, it'll be there, ' she said.

'Okay, Thank you.' and I left.

Let me point out now that it is 12:51 AM on 14 May. The money still isn't in my account. This is not the first time this has happened...as a matter of fact, it seems to happen EVERY TIME I've checked. I know from prior experience that it will not post until 6:00 AM.

This is aggravating. I have an important purchase to make online using my debit card. I wanted to do it tonight so that it could be shipped out first thing in the morning. If I *do* attempt to make said purchase EVEN THOUGH THE FUNDS SHOULD BE THERE, I know I will be dinged with an NSF fee, an overdraft fee and whatever other fees they choose to tack on.

And I know I will not be compensated for their failure to follow their own policy and RELEASE MY OWN FUNDS. We're still talking about cash here.

I have opened an account with Wachovia bank and will close my account, in person and in writing as soon as I receive my debit card for my new account. I checked their practices and they seem to be on-par with industry standard so you may want to switch to either them or a bank that's like them.