Oooh, I'm Angry!!!

So this past January, right after I deposited my paycheck, some piece-of-shit company out of California stole amost $550 from our checking account. They got our debit card number and ran the transaction to take the money. Fraud! As soon as we saw it (unfortunately, when some checks bounced several days later), David immediately contacted the bank, a small regionally owned bank, and they promptly did... nothing. Well, wait a minute. They did do something. They paid the checks that hit during the overdraft (good) and charged us $25 for each check (not so good). So now we are overdrawn almost $850. Add to this problem that David had, without knowing there was an issue, deposited his paycheck into the account, and it was gone, too. The girl at the bank failed to tell him that he needed to file a dispute and sign an affidavit. After David continued calling the bank daily for more than 2 weeks, he finally made it to someone who had some authority, who told him that they we hadn't turned in the affidavit required to reverse the charge. A few days later, after more daily calls to the bank, the girl finally came forward with the required paperwork, which David promptly completed and turned in that day. Not knowing about the required paperwork delayed this whole process an unnecesssary 2 1/2 weeks. Have you ever dealt with someone who you have to re-explain everything from square one every single time you communicate? It's so frustrating! All of this happened during the time that I changed jobs and went to a once-a-month paycheck and I didn't get paid again for almost 5 weeks. It has not been so easy the last 2 months as we didn't have the money to spare. We used up our savings during the time I was caring for my Mom and haven't been able to replenish, so we are operating on a tight budget.

The debit card has a Mastercard logo, which I thought afforded some protection at times like this. Mastercard has a "zero liability policy" http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/cardholderservices/zeroliability.html
that says I am not liable. But this is the kicker: the bank has to actually honor and enforce this "policy" and since it's a "policy" and not a "mandate" or a "law," the bank makes the ultimate decision whether to eat it and reimburse the money or not. Mastercard has informed us that most banks will refund the money while the investigation is ongoing, then take the money back if they find that the charge is legitimate. For now, our bank has decided not to do anything. Well, wait a minute. They've decided that they can take up to 90 days to complete their investigation while they don't return our phone calls, and they've decided that, at the end of 90 days, if they are not going to eat the almost $550 + overdraft charges, then we have to deposit the almost $850 into the checking account ourselves. Grrrr!

This comes to the reason I'm posting this here, so you can learn from my mistakes. You may already be aware of this, but I wasn't. If your debit card number is hacked, you are liable for the charges even if you have an agreement saying that you're not. Even if that agreement is in writing, your bank is the ultimate authority, not Mastercard, not Visa. Being fairly new here in our little town, we didn't know that our bank of choice had a history of bad customer service issues. Also, I didn't know that I could have asked for and gotten a non-logo'd (doesn't have the Mastercard or Visa logo) traditional ATM card that can only be used at the ATM (i.e., the card is useless anywhere but at the ATM). That's the only place we use our debit card anyway, so I'm mad that nobody at the bank told me about this. Of course, they make money off of people who use their debit cards in stores or online, so they have no interest in informing their customers about this. One more thing, the piece-of-shit company out of California either hangs up on us, puts us on indefinite hold or just doesn't answer the phone.

Well, folks, thanks for letting me vent. I hope you do your due diligence regarding your debit card. I certainly thought I had done mine, but I was wrong. I will post an update as soon as we have a resolution. I'm still hopeful that the bank will honor the "zero liability policy" and put the money back in our account and refund the overdraft fees.