Consumer complaint received 2018-10-25
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Fee problem
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION (GA)

Regions Bank has been charging me excessive fees and returning items that other banks would pay into overdraft, the type of items that they did not return before, after I opted out of overdraft coverage based on advice from a customer service agent when I said I wanted to avoid fees in the future. Their customer service agents refused to admit bank errors when I was charged overdraft/NSF fees on a positive balance randomly during the day ( not overnight ), I had made a deposit to cover the transactions via instant transfer from the XXXX XXXX app by the stated deadline of XXXX central the day before. The mobile app showed the balance correctly at XXXX central, and I woke up the next day and it was still the same, then at some point I log in and my balance is {$36.00} less than expected after the fee. After I made the deposit, the deposited amount had been included in my available balance on both online banking and the mobile app. I should not have been charged the fees on these days. When I called customer service about this the agents basically just said no and didnt really listen to me, and implied that they thought I was making it up. The dates and times sometimes change for transactions, purchases disappear and then reappear later, and its very difficult to know exactly how much is in my account. The fees got worse after I called and complained. When I was opted in to overdraft coverage they were still returning some items and charging me a fee- I still had to pay the item another way but had a fee from Regions and a fee from the company, but it wasnt every single item. I was never able to make an everyday debit card or atm transaction that overdrew my account even when I really needed to get gas and was getting paid the next day, so I turned overdraft coverage off as the agent suggested because almost nothing was being covered anyway. The way it was explained to me was that opting out is just supposed to mean I do not want to allow debit card and atm transactions to overdraw my account, but I cant opt out of overdraft for checks, ach, and recurring card transactions. It should not affect how they treat my account in terms of paying or returning a check, echeck, or recurring payment, but it has seemed to have the effect of them returning more items and charging more fees. It seems almost every item is returned but they dont let me know until several days later, and these fees are being charged for items that were not paid. I have been charged {$210.00} in fees just since XX/XX/XXXX, half of that on 1 day ( It didnt show up until XX/XX/XXXX but the {$100.00} in fees are listed on the XXXX ). My balance is - {$200.00}. If you remove all of these fees just since the XXXX my account would not be negative, and many banks would have paid the returned items in my case. I might not have this big of a problem with the fees if the items themselves were not returned, causing me to be charged another fee by the other company for many of them. I was charged at least 2 {$36.00} fees when I had a positive balance after making a deposit by the deadline. I only didnt make a deposit because it appeared that the items were successful on the other companies end, and I wasnt seeing any returned items on my end so that I could prevent them being returned. The items had appeared to be completed when I last checked the app.