Consumer complaint received 2018-12-12
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: TN
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Overdrafts and overdraft fees

Complaint:
My complaint is that Regions Bank conducts fraudulent business practices, specifically reordering of transactions and giving fraudulent account balance information. Also the Practice of Charging overdrafts on pending charges. I had a positive balance in account as of XX/XX/2018, made several transactions from account. Checked balance on the online bankling which showed positive balance after those transactions. Made an ATM withdraw which put account into negative status and understandably incurred one overdraft fee. Had a direct Deposit that would cover the one ATM charge that should have posted at midnight. Checked account onXX/XX/18 to find transactions reordered which cause my account to incur multiple overdraft fees instead of one fee. This is the second time this has happened.

See conversation below for previous dates.

] > XXXX, Thank you for your response. My name is XXXX and I will be happy to assist you. 



I apologize for any inconvenience that this matter may have caused you. When a purchase or withdrawal is made with a CheckCard,  those funds are immediately held ( or " frozen '' ). Purchases made with a CheckCard have been guaranteed to that merchant and represent goods or services that have already been received. This means that during processing each night, there must be enough funds available in the account to cover the items that are posting and the items that are still pending. 

The balance in the account before posting on XX/XX/2018 was {$19.00}. There was 2 transaction pending ( holding ) for {$16.00} and a deposit of {$35.00}, which left an available balance of {$38.00} for us to pay the items posting to your account that night.

There were then 4 items presented for payment on the account totaling {$40.00}. We paid the items for you, but the account was charged the overdraft fee since the funds were not available to pay one of the items. Even though the funds were in the account, they were not available since they had been guaranteed to other merchants for the pending items. 

I know this can be complicated. To make things easier to understand, we provide a breakdown of your balance on this date ( or the date of any overdraft occurrence ), from your Account Details screen. All you have to do is click the green fee name in the description column. This will allow you to view the Overdraft Notice.

While we understand that your Online Banking, Mobile Banking, and alerts are wonderful tools that assist you with your financial needs, we are unable to guarantee the alerts or balances will be made and reflect in " real-time ''. This is due to a number of factors which can cause delays such as service provider or carrier outages, merchant/bank processing, inbox filters, etc. Because of this, the only way to know what the true available balance in your account is, is by keeping a written log of all transactions and deposits for each account.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation