Saturday, August 28, 2004


C. Dowd Ritter, CEO & President
P. O. Box 11007Birmingham 35288

Dear Mr. Ritter;

I am a current customer of Amsouth, however after an experience I had today, I will be changing institutions very soon.

I, like many of your customers, live paycheck to paycheck. My budget includes normal living expenses (i.e. rent, car payment, utilities, etc), in addition to co-pays for medical care and necessary medications for my family and myself.

If you look at my account history, you will see that I have had several overdrafts – sometimes by misplacing receipts and not entering them in my register, and sometimes due to having to pay doctor’s bills and crossing my fingers that I can get the money in the bank before the check is presented. In those situations, I accepted responsibility and recovered.

This week, however, I felt I was charged unfairly an overdraft fee of $180 and received absolutely no help from the staff located on Highway 31 in Hoover.

After inquiring with one of the associates at that location, he informed me that there was a hold of $56.45 due to a deposit I made on Monday, August 16, 2004 for $156.45. As a result of the new policy, only $100 dollars was made available and therefore caused the overdraft fees on my account.

The policy was explained to me that all non – Amsouth checks that are deposited into a customer’s account only $100 was immediately available, and the rest is made available the next day. They were all regurgitating that the policy was included in the monthly statements, and signs were placed in the lobby alerting customers of the change. They further disclosed that this is Amsouth policy, and is not regulated by the Reg CC laws that apply to holding funds.

The reason for the Reg CC hold is to protect the institution. Checks that are unusually large, or from out of state a Reg CC hold is placed on the check and the teller is required to inform the customer of the hold, and when the funds will be available. this check was drawn on Region’s Bank, and is easily verifiable.

As the Reg CC hold is disclosed at the time of the deposit, the “Amsouth hold” should be disclosed just as diligently. This whole ugly and not to mention expensive situation could have been easily avoided if the teller would have disclosed the hold. I could have crossed the street, cashed the check, then deposited the cash. Today’s standards of convenience and customer service are focused on making their product the easiest, quickest, and simplest to use thus saving the consumer time. How can Amsouth call themselves the “Relationship People?” Bah humbug. All they want is for people to hand over their money.

This is not a layman’s observation. I have worked in the banking industry for years. I know for a fact one bank advertised they would pay up to $500 in insufficient checks and applying standard overdraft fees for individual items paid in overdraft. Once the customer was $500 negative, they would return insufficient items. When I ask why they made that decision, the reply was to increase revenue.

Up until now, my household income has been direct deposited and therefore did not require me to go inside a branch office, but did occasionally use the drive-up window for small deposits..

The job I have just accepted does not offer direct deposit, so this is the first time I have deposited a payroll check into my account.

It is my opinion that this policy was designed to generate revenue. You prey on folks just like me by making it easier for overdrafts occur. Banks loose money on maintaining checking accounts, and this is your method to regain that revenue.

I strongly feel the $90 should be refunded to me, and the branch offer a written apology. I would also like to recommend that tellers give a verbal disclosure of the “Amsouth hold” as a standard script when non – Amsouth checks are deposited.



Cc: http://www.wbrc.com/6onyourside/index.shtml#archives