Consumer complaint received 2017-01-22
Product: Bank account or service — Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management — 
Company: Northern Trust Company, The (CA)

What Happened : My concern and problem with my bank, revolves around my checking account and the line of credit attached to it. 
My current, checking account has an existing line of credit for {$1000.00} dollars, which is both a personal and business checking, in XXXX account. I 've had this bank account since XX/XX/XXXX and the line of credit on this account since XX/XX/XXXX. 
What is my concern? Two-fold : First my bank poaches my account. How does the bank do that? 
My original line of credit was set up so that I will always receive my monthly bank payment allotment ( comes from the department of Treasury for a pension payment ) on the day of the month, before the payment for the bank fees are due. 
No matter how many times in the past I tried to change the set-up so the dates would align in my favor thus avoiding overdraft fees, it never worked that way. 
My allotment is like clock work, it always arrives on the XXXX day of the month via ACH, unless there is a holiday, or the month ends on a weekend. In which case my funds credit a day prior. 
The regular, reoccurring, direct deposit payment always comes on or before the XXXX of every month, and sometimes sooner, but never later. But the bank does not always credit when they receive my direct deposit thus resulting in small problems with my account. 
My original use of the line of credit meant that if I had an overage the bank would cover it until my incoming deposit would offset the cost. Thus not charging me for an overdraft, or other banking errors, or fees. 
But the bank finds ways around that either by taking maintenance payments early or holding up my deposit an extra day. Even though I have had this account for a very long time ( since XX/XX/XXXX ) the bank takes advantage of me and poaches my account. 
My bank waits to collect the amount for my account maintenance fees ( usually about {$20.00} ) until a day before the direct deposit, not a day after as I had originally set it up. The bank is not open on Sunday or Saturday but they will balance a maintenance payment against my account on a Sunday if the payment arrives on Monday. Even if I wanted to correct the problem I ca n't since the bank is closed and with a payment already scheduled it resolves itself. 
Second problem with this besides the costs to me, is the bank uses the overages to show a pattern that they now say is shutting down my line of credit. 
What my bank is doing is over-drafting my bank account by collecting a maintenance fee within 24 hours of my incoming direct deposit and even if I 'm only XXXX cents overdrawn and have a pending deposit to offset it, they collect the overdraft fees 1st. 
I am calling this " poaching '' since my bank does this deliberately by aligning payments, fees and overages to happen before the direct deposit although they often happen within a day of each other. 
Many years ago to stop my bank from taking advantage of me in this way I called and spoke to my banker. He told me the bank is not allowed to collect maintenance fees that will overdraft my account. He said that if a maintenance fee is due when funds come into the account it covers that cost ( maintenance fee ) thus always balancing itself, before an overdraft. 
But many years go by and the bank keeps taking the maintenance fees and over-drafting my account by a few dollars, or less, for a {$20.00} payment that is n't even over due more than 24 hours. And they do it when the bank is closed. The bank seems to know my direct deposit is coming so they collect the payment first and if there is a discrepancy of even a few cents they charge me an overdraft up to {$45.00}. 
Because this all happens within a day or so, the transactions happen without any time opportunity for me to correct anything to avoid this problem. Originally, I set-it up so my direct deposit would always come first, before the bank fees are balanced against the account to avoid this problem.