Consumer complaint received 2015-07-06
Product: Bank account or service — Checking account
Issue: Deposits and withdrawals — 
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION (AL)

I have a checking account with Regions Bank. I have an XXXX XXXX XXXX. I authorized XXXX XXXX to make automatic withdrawals from my checking to pay the amount due on my XXXX XXXX XXXX. At the end of XXXX, I ran short on funds and called XXXX XXXX to stop the automatic withdrawal. They said that it was too late, that I had to notify them more than 2 days before the date scheduled for the withdrawal. They said that I would have to call the bank and tell them to deny the payment. This was on a Friday afternoon. I called the bank and was told that they would honor it because I had an {$800.00} overdraft allowance. I asked them to remove that allowance which they did and to deny payment of the funds. However, on that Friday night they processed the request from XXXX XXXX and withdrew the money from my account even though I had no overdraft protection. The charge showed on my account as pending but the funds had been removed from the account leaving me with a negative balance and no access to funds. Upon seeing this on Monday morning, I called the bank and was told that they would not actually process this payment until Tues. night at which time the money would be returned to my account. They also said I would have to pay a {$36.00} charge for insufficient funds. So the bank had the use of my money for Sat., Sun., Mon. and Tues. and I paid {$36.00} for them to use my money and I had no money with which to buy food and gas. I got through that. However, now it is a week later and XXXX XXXX has run the charge through again and I am denied the use of my money while again the bank has the use of it for investing in the overnight market and once again I will pay {$36.00} for them to have the privilege of making money off of my money. How can the bank do this when I stopped the overdraft coverage? Also, if I were trying to spend money that was n't in my account, the bank would deny the charge immediately. Why, then, should n't they deny the XXXX XXXX charge immediately, especially the second time when I had notified them a week before not to honor that charge. In reality, the bank knew after midnight on Thursday that they had received the draft from XXXX XXXX. On Friday it showed as pending but not deducted from my account. Then Friday at midnight they deducted it with no intention of paying it to XXXX XXXX until Tues. at midnight. XXXX XXXX should be as mad as I am because, if I had had the money, then it would have been XXXX XXXX ' money that the bank was using for 4 days. In this age of computers and international markets, there is no excuse for this. But for me it was a much more serious threat. I am retired and on a fixed income and while the bank is using my money, I can not even buy food. Since I am single and like to eat fresh food, I do not buy large quantities of food at a time because it will go bad before I eat it. So for Sat., Sun., Mon. and Tues., I had very little food. Now I am in the same situation this week. I do keep some canned foods and snacks in case of a hurricane so that is what I did and will eat but for some there may be no food. I would like something done to stop the bank from denying me access to funds they have no intention of paying out ever, and, for that matter to stop denying me the use of funds that they are not going to pay for 4 days. As an aside, in the world we live in today, weekends should count as business days because world markets are open.