Consumer complaint received 2016-08-11
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: NC
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
On XXXX XXXX 2016, my wife requested a copy of our transactions conducted against our checking and savings accounts, in an attempt to try to figure out what sort of funds availability we had, by telephone. The representative she spoke with was helpful ; however, no mention of any fees that were to be charged for this service was ever made. In addition, while most consumers only request a few pages, resulting in {$20.00} - {$30.00}, or perhaps even a {$100.00} in charges, this request resulted in over XXXX pages being printed out, going back at least a year! 
The total charges for this were as follows : Joint checking account : {$850.00} Joint savings account : {$520.00} Joint savings account : {$130.00} Daughter 's checking account : {$580.00} Total : {$2000.00} That is a TOTAL of over {$2000.00} for simple copying, printing, and shipping, with NONE of these charges ever being explained to my wife! In fact, when I called to complain, the manager of the bank refused to even consider refunding even part of these fees because they were " in the depositors ' agreement '' - a document that I last looked at sometime early this year! 

This amount, is not only excessive, and exorbitant, I consider it to be literally, " highway robbery '', where the consumer is not told what fees are actually going to be charged at the time! 

When I called to complain about these insane charges against our accounts, I was pushed to a " manager '' who refused to even discuss the accounts in question, refused to offer any sort of recourse or recompense, and actually was somewhat rude towards me. 

This manager stated that " it 's in the depositors ' agreement '' and acted as if we should have known that these amounts were going to be charged, even though not one depositor probably looks at these documents except when they are mailed out by the bank, and even then, more than likely, 95 % of depositors probably only give it a brief once over! 

Additionally, she stated that USAA, and its representatives are under absolutely no obligation to disclose fees to consumers since they are " explained in the depositors ' agreement ''. 

While this might be ok for fees of under {$200.00} or {$300.00}, anything above that amount, should automatically require disclosure to the consumer, especially if these fees are going to cause an account to go into a negative balance! 

With regards to accounts being charged so much that they go negative : our daughter 's checking account, was charged so much in fees, that it actually did result in negative balance, which will probably result in additional fees, and none of this was explained to my wife! 

While both my wife and I have access to that account, that account belongs to our daughter, who was not privy to the charges that were being levied against her account, and this in and of itself, constitutes an illegal account access by USAA to that account to charge fees that were not theirs to charge. 

When the representative on the phone does not even discuss these charges and ensure that the customer making the request is aware of these charges, or the TOTAL amount of them, charging the consumer, who has been a member, for at least the last 15 years, and to drain their accounts of almost {$2100.00} is outright theft! 

These charges are completely out of line with the high quality of service I expected from USAA, and the fact that the manager was rude, and refused to even discuss what she might be able to do with regards to these charges does not speak well for USAA.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief