Good Afternoon Mr. Ed Clark CEO,

I enjoyed hearing you talk the other morning on the CBC radio show about your volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity and other charities and the substantial monies that you and your family donate to charities in the City of Toronto. I also heard you talk about your concern for and help specifically to single mothers. In addition, you spoke about the work that TD Bank was doing in the community. I have also seen your photo and articles about you and the TD Bank in various community news-type papers about the work you do with housing developments.

That radio show and TD Bank and your personal philanthropic work assertions is, in part, why I am writing to you. I am a single mother presently working at the Ontario Government as a legal assistant who regrettably has been saddled with debt from an ex-husband with a variety of mental health/substance abuse issues. If you are truly a philanthropist and concerned about helping single mothers I am asking for your help as the TD's CEO and spokesperson and personally.

I am very hard working and honest and my two children, Liam and Kaitlyn Murray, are 10 and 9 respectively and are wonderful children. I enrol them regularly in tap/ballet, Aikido, soccer, baseball, piano lessons, and more recently, Scouts of Canada. I worked until mid 2009 with a wonderful lawyer in Scarborough, Mr. John William Vaillancourt, who lost the battle for his life to a cancer treatment related heart attack. I experienced further terrific financial obstacles thereafter trying to keep a roof over my children's head, food on the table, a car on the road so I could find work and yet present a valiant face in order that my children didn't worry or know the extent of our situation.

I am a strong, proud, woman who needs a break. Granted TD Bank only made just over $1Billion in the 4th quarter in 2009, but I am writing to implore your assistance in obtaining a compassionate, reconsideration of the almost $10K in an 'interest rate differential charge' as well as a $5, 261.10 'repayment amount' in the re-finance of my mortgage . Not to be dramatic but this is quite literally food out of my children's mouths and money out of their education! Surely, TD Bank doesn't need the money at this personal cost to a struggling single-parent family. Ought not people assist those who are attempting to assist themselves rather than crippling them or crippling them to say 'we're helping others'!?!

In 2007, I had to take out a second mortgage which a personal friend was happy to advance at an 8% interest rate for $45, 000.00 Evidently, my ex-husband had defaulted on a Scotiabank line of credit which I had guaranteed and, in addition, he had not paid any realty taxes which had to be brought up to date. I was left footing the bill.

Now that I am working again (and commuting almost 2 hours each way) for the last number of months, I am finally refinancing my mortgages at a more manageable interest rate and, as a result, am being penalized exorbitantly! This is how a long time customer of TD Bank is treated?!!

I had tried to refinance earlier in the year with TD Bank, however, they would not re-finance the mortgage they held, blend or otherwise reduce the 7.65% interest rate or re-configure the two mortgages together to make payments more manageable. It was looking for those early months as if I would lose the house. I have my own business and therefore was not eligible to receive E.I. I owned a home and was not eligible for regular social assistance! It was incredibly frightening! On top of that I now need to replace my roof - apparently my property insurance depends on it and the estimate was $6, 500! How can you reconcile knowing that your salary (which you said on the show was incredible) and your lifestyle and those of your colleagues is because of penalty amounts of more that $15, 000 out of the pockets of single hard working struggling parents like myself?

My business account, RRSP mutual funds, TFSA, student loans, chequing account, savings account, td insurance, mortgage and Visa were with TD Bank. In the early 80's, I worked at the TD Bank and that was when I opened my first account with them. I would not like to admit that TD Bank earns its profits off the backs of hardworking lower income working families like myself. I put myself through school. I paid my student loans back in full. Does the average person on the street know that these kinds of ridiculous fees could be there's - they are almost prohibitive and make the re-finance a mute point!

I have calls in to the 55 King Street West, Main Floor branch regarding this payout (M#8087619) and have implored with them to take a look at this matter and see their way clear to re-consider such debilitating "prepayment charge".

Please consider this matter further Mr. Clark and I would ask that you do the right thing for (single parent) families who are hard working, honest people and intervene on our behalf with your colleagues.

Thank you very much in advance for your time and your anticipated consideration of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Katherine Porteous
705 424 5591
647 401 5591
416 326-4842

I have been getting mortgages and equity loans for 20 years, never have I seen a bank as anal as TD bank. Then they tack on fees when they caused the delay in the first place. I would steer clear of this bank. I loved them when they were COmmerce Bank known for customer service and they went out of their way to help expedite the processes.

I've been a customer of TD since it was Commerce, I loved how they are open earlier and close later. Going to local branches I always felt that they treated you well. Recently I had a problem with overdraft fees that ended up totaling in over $200 I called to talk to customer service about it but was given an attitude when I asked where I overdrafted because the initial overdraft didn't show on my account. After this person continued to give me attitude I asked to speak with a manager. This was even worse, she continued to be extremely rude while attempting to figure out where I overdrafted. I then asked for another manager, this woman was very helpful she explained everything to me CALMLY! I then asked her if I was going to overdraft again because I was in the negative and I was receiving my paycheck a week late which is why I overdrafted (my fault I should have been on top of that). She told me that if I zeroed out my account I would be fine. So I did more than that and I woke up the next morning to another overdraft fee. When I callled and spoke with another person she told me that the overdraft fee was from two days before and it was just because they were waiting on the pending transaction. I explained to her that I understood that but why hadn't the other person told me that? She said she should have volunteered the information but because she wasn't part of the conversation she would forward my information to a supervisor to review it. She then told me to zero out my account again, I called two more times to verify that information and spoke with two very nice women who were extremely helpful. I wasn't going to bother with trying to fix the overdraft fees anymore because I really didn't want to deal with it anymore and I knew it was my fault but a few people, one who used to work at TD Bank, told me I should try. So I called and immediately asked for a manger and the manager, Tina, could not have been more rude!! After explaining my problem with the overdraft fees and realizing she wasn't budging I then asked who could I complain to about how poorly I felt I had been treated by some of the customer service reps. She wouldn't let me speak and kept interrupting me, she thought I was still trying to get my overdraft fee back when I was trying to tell her that I didn't want it back and what I was trying to do was make a complaint. She continued to say that "ultimately it falls on your shoulders" which is ridiculous because I wasn't talking about overdrafting and if she would have just let me finish a sentence she would have realized that! Finally I got frustrated and yelled "LISTEN TO ME!" to which she repeated "Miss there's no need to yet at me" over and over and over and I was calmly trying to say "Okay I'm sorry" She still continued repeating that even after I repeated okay and said could you please listen to me? she then hung up on me. I called and explained to the next woman about what had happened and said I just wanted to complain about some of the people working in your department and I think that this problem should be fixed. I said I don't think people deserve to be fired or in trouble but maybe someone should give them more training because they clearly didn't understand the concept of customer service. She agreed and then told me that Tina must have refunded $70.00 to my account. I said that I appreciated that but I didn't think I would be able to continue my business there because I'm not going to be spoken to the way I was spoken to. I have every intention of writing TD Bank and informing them of how AWFUL I felt while dealing with there customer service. If they don't do anything to make me feel more at ease they will absolutely lose my business as well as my family's and probably some friends which would be more loss then my overdraft fee.
Oh and P.S. for you TD Bank employees on here who are going to try to defend your customer service and the overdraft policy, I admitted over the phone multiple times that I knew it was my fault. When I was trying to complain about customer service to Tina I said "I know I messed up" that still doesn't mean they have the right to speak to me the way they did. I wouldn't take that from anyone and I'm most certainly not going to take it from some customer service rep at a bank that doesn't realize how lucky she is to have a full time job! I worked customer service for years and I can tell you that everyday I went into work expecting people to yell at me and be rude to me and I never lost my temper with them because that is was I was getting paid to deal with, and it was always wonderful when I could make them happy and deal with nice customers. I would have lost my job if I spoke with my customers the way I was spoken to. The only difference between me and Tina was that when I did it I dealt with these people face-to-face, I didn't have the comfort of a phone line and a cubicle.

TD Bank is the worst ever, they delayed my mortgage for 1 month and I eventually lost the house. I tried to contact the load processor via emails/phone calls/voice mails, unbelievably she wouldn't get back to me day after day, and even week after week. I tried calling her suppervisor, customer service, they are not helping!!(all the BS like send her email, she will get back to you in 1 business day..blala..) and now I have to deal with them for the fees they charging me.

Stay away from this bank!!

I firmly believe that TD Banks practices in establishing overdraft are absurd, illegal and unethical. It is terrible how they manipulate their system into making people overdraft their accounts, when in fact they haven't. I have never had a problem with my checking accounts in 16 years, until TD Bank took over for Commerce. I wish there was something I could do to make them accountable for all the money they've stolen from myself and everyone else.