I just spent the saddest Thanksgiving/Christmas season ever helping a family member because of WestAmerica's predatory banking practices. Practices that I believe were addressed in a previous class action lawsuit a few years ago.
We keep close tabs on this family member since his health problems have left him functional but incapable of understanding complex or unexpected changes in his routine. Banking is usually easy for him with his 2 Social Security checks automatically deposited and the same types of debits made each month in the form of utilities, cell phone, and groceries. His needs are simple and his banking practices the same. His independence means a great deal to him.
As a large family, we all noticed that about the middle of November our family member was increasingly agitated, we assumed it was his health or medication levels. Then he shares with me that he doesn't have any money for food. We assumed that he meant that he couldn't host Thanksgiving or bring a dish to the potluck family gathering. It was worse. He didn't have enough money to pay his bills, had his cell phone service terminated, and had not a single penny left for food. He was just trying to live off of what he had in the cabinets, eventually requesting help from a local food pantry for the first time.
It has taken me this long to unravel the sequence of events. He called in his usual AT&T autorization to pay his cell phone bill the first week of November. AT&T debited his account twice in error. WestAmerica seeing 2 identical transactions should have questioned the second transaction, they did not. Knowing there would not be enough money to cover it, they allowed the transaction to go through and then began charging the enormous overdraft amounts and daily penalties for having a negative balance. Having just enough to meet his needs these unneccesary banking fees sent his budget into an unmanageable, nonrecoverable tail-spin. His visits to WestAmerica and calls to WestAmerica coporate just confused him further and provided no solution. This all took place despite AT&T returning the second debited amount back to his account, proving to the bank that the situation was not a miscalculation on his part but a banking error that should have been caught inhouse before it escalated.
Somehow, someone at WestAmerica took mercy on him, zero'd out the outstanding "balance" of penalty banking fees, and closed his account on November 28th, 2014. The week previous he had Social Security reroute his checks to a second account he had with another bank.
The beginning of December one check was successfully deposited into the second account. The second smaller check was not. It went to WestAmerica, to a closed account. Our family member claims that he was still allowed to check the status of his account online even though it showed the account was closed with a zero balance. He sees that his smaller check was electronically returned. So he waited a couple weeks, believing that the situation would right itself. It did not.
He eventually began calling the Social Security office to find out that the check had not been returned. He then called WestAmerica to find out that they had actually cashed the check taking out the banking fees they had previously zero'd out and then just hung onto the remainder of the check. Social Security states that WestAmerica did in fact make a transaction after our family member's account was closed and informed him that WestAmerica was not authorized to handle the second check in this manner. It's now in Social Security's hands to resolve.
All of this taking place with a disabled, senior citizen through two of the largest holidays of the year with a bank that he trusted for many years. Thankfully our family is large and supportive but that doesn't change the fact that WestAmerica's practices are predatory. My personal opinion is that someone in the local branch was given some type of financial incentive to handle similar banking transactions in this manner and chances are high that many others have remained silent and sad throughout this holiday season in the same pitiful situation.
Westamerica Bank Reviews
I just spent the saddest Thanksgiving/Christmas season ever helping a family member because of WestAmerica's predatory banking practices. Practices that I believe were addressed in a previous class action lawsuit a few years ago.
We keep close tabs on this family member since his health problems have left him functional but incapable of understanding complex or unexpected changes in his routine. Banking is usually easy for him with his 2 Social Security checks automatically deposited and the same types of debits made each month in the form of utilities, cell phone, and groceries. His needs are simple and his banking practices the same. His independence means a great deal to him.
As a large family, we all noticed that about the middle of November our family member was increasingly agitated, we assumed it was his health or medication levels. Then he shares with me that he doesn't have any money for food. We assumed that he meant that he couldn't host Thanksgiving or bring a dish to the potluck family gathering. It was worse. He didn't have enough money to pay his bills, had his cell phone service terminated, and had not a single penny left for food. He was just trying to live off of what he had in the cabinets, eventually requesting help from a local food pantry for the first time.
It has taken me this long to unravel the sequence of events. He called in his usual AT&T autorization to pay his cell phone bill the first week of November. AT&T debited his account twice in error. WestAmerica seeing 2 identical transactions should have questioned the second transaction, they did not. Knowing there would not be enough money to cover it, they allowed the transaction to go through and then began charging the enormous overdraft amounts and daily penalties for having a negative balance. Having just enough to meet his needs these unneccesary banking fees sent his budget into an unmanageable, nonrecoverable tail-spin. His visits to WestAmerica and calls to WestAmerica coporate just confused him further and provided no solution. This all took place despite AT&T returning the second debited amount back to his account, proving to the bank that the situation was not a miscalculation on his part but a banking error that should have been caught inhouse before it escalated.
Somehow, someone at WestAmerica took mercy on him, zero'd out the outstanding "balance" of penalty banking fees, and closed his account on November 28th, 2014. The week previous he had Social Security reroute his checks to a second account he had with another bank.
The beginning of December one check was successfully deposited into the second account. The second smaller check was not. It went to WestAmerica, to a closed account. Our family member claims that he was still allowed to check the status of his account online even though it showed the account was closed with a zero balance. He sees that his smaller check was electronically returned. So he waited a couple weeks, believing that the situation would right itself. It did not.
He eventually began calling the Social Security office to find out that the check had not been returned. He then called WestAmerica to find out that they had actually cashed the check taking out the banking fees they had previously zero'd out and then just hung onto the remainder of the check. Social Security states that WestAmerica did in fact make a transaction after our family member's account was closed and informed him that WestAmerica was not authorized to handle the second check in this manner. It's now in Social Security's hands to resolve.
All of this taking place with a disabled, senior citizen through two of the largest holidays of the year with a bank that he trusted for many years. Thankfully our family is large and supportive but that doesn't change the fact that WestAmerica's practices are predatory. My personal opinion is that someone in the local branch was given some type of financial incentive to handle similar banking transactions in this manner and chances are high that many others have remained silent and sad throughout this holiday season in the same pitiful situation.
Shame on you WestAmerica, shame on you.