Consumer complaint received 2021-07-21
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Fee problem
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION (TN)

Over the past year, I have been charged {$820.00} in fees by Regions Bank. The largest percentage of these fees are in connection to my checking account which can be categorized as overdraft fees, overdraft transfer fees, and international service charges. I participate in online banking which has a feature of setting a balance threshold at which time I receive alerts by text and email notifying me of a low balance. Over the past year, I have had to go into my account and repeatedly redo these settings because I never received the alerts as I had set on the settings page. It was as though the system cleared itself and I had start fresh all over again. Because the system did not alert me as it was supposed to, my account went into the negative on more than one occasion resulting in fees. I do not feel I should be held responsible for these fees because I depended on a service that I opted in for but did not receive. I tried bringing this to the banks ' attention by calling in more than once only to be told I would need to go in and reset my alerts once again. Only recently ( approximately 2 months ) have I actually been getting the notifications like I am supposed to. Whenever my account did go into the negative, I was very quick to bring the account into the positive by making an adequate deposit ( usually within 24 hours ) that covered the fees ( sometimes well over {$100.00} ) plus additional funds. Never did I let the account sit in the negative for any length of time nor would I have allowed it to go into the negative had I been alerted as I thought I would be according to the terms of service when I opted in for low balance alerts. I have a total of 5 accounts with Regions to which there is very regular activity of deposited funds. I contacted Regions today regarding a late fee I was assessed on my credit card account for a payment that was actually received on time. They did refund that fee. This made me start looking at all of the fees I had been assessed in total over the last year. I was shocked to see it added up to over {$800.00} so I asked the representative if anything could be done and also explained the problem I had had with the alerts. I also explained that it was my understanding that banks were requested by the federal government to waive fees assessed during the Covid Pandemic time period. ( I understood specifically that fee refunds were not automatic and that a customer had to ask the bank directly. The representative first chuckled and said he had never heard of any such thing. He said he only saw 2 recent fees which he did refund to my account. When I asked about all the others, XXXX in total, he acted confused because he didn't see them. He completely ignored me giving no response regarding the international service fees. He escalated the issue to a manager named XXXX located in XXXX. XXXX put me on hold to " research '' the account only to come back to the line and tell me he could not help me. Until today, I had never requested a fee reversal with Regions because I did not want to be that customer who thinks the rules do not apply to them. The transactions that actually put the account into the negative were always recurring charges. None of them were random expenditures for unessential goods.But enough is enough. I have been affected by the Pandemic by losing my source of employment. Fortunately, I have had an inheritance to sustain my husband and myself during these tough times. However, that does not give Regions the right to ignore a problem with their system and collect fee after fee from me which could have easily been prevented. I did my due diligence by trying to prevent the fees with opting in to low balance alerts, reported the issue to customer service, and immediately rectified the resulting negative balances by taking swift action and making deposits.