Consumer complaint received 2026-07-14 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: CO

Complaint narrative:
I have been a USAA member since about XXXX ( checking ending XXXX, credit card ending XXXX ). This complaint concerns a sequence in which USAA ( XXXX ) enrolled my checking account in " Standard Overdraft '' by default, without any election by me ; ( XXXX ) sold me a 0 % promotional balance transfer while its own system held a standing autopay certain to destroy that balance, with no warning at the point of sale ; ( XXXX ) sent no advance alert before the autopay executed; and ( XXXX ) when I found it too late to stop, steered me into USAA 's own 16.39 % loan while never disclosing the no-cost option of letting the item return unpaid. USAA replaced its own 0 % obligation with its own 16.39 % loan. 

Timeline ( calls stated to my best recollection ; USAA 's recordings hold the verbatim record ) : - XX/XX/XXXX : Per USAA 's XX/XX/XXXX notices, Standard Overdraft was applied to eligible checking accounts by default. I made no election. Default enrollment without affirmative consent is contrary to Regulation XXXX 's opt-in framework ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) and at minimum unfair under XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX 
- XX/XX/XXXX : I created a " Statement Balance in Full '' autopay as a backstop. From XXXX I paid manually ; it rarely if ever executed. 
- XX/XX/XXXX : USAA approved a {$10000.00} balance transfer at 0 % APR through XX/XX/XXXX for a {$540.00} fee. No warning about the standing autopay appeared in the transfer flow. 
- XX/XX/XXXX : USAA emailed an advance alert for its own insurance autopay on the same profile. No alert preceded the credit card autopay. 
- XX/XX/XXXX : The autopay swept {$10000.00}, extinguishing the promotional balance. 
- XX/XX/XXXX : I discovered the sweep, too late to stop under USAA 's three-business-day window. On this and later calls, reps disclosed for the first time that Standard Overdraft was a default enrollment, said the sweep would " likely '' pay through it, and presented a USAA personal loan as the solution. No one disclosed the item could instead be returned unpaid, at no fee, with the balance intact. That omission and the steering into USAA 's own loan were deceptive and abusive under XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX. 
- XX/XX/XXXX : Relying on that guidance, I took loan no. XXXX ( {$10000.00} at 16.39 % ), sized to the sweep. I set the overdraft to Auto-Decline the day I learned it existed. 
- XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX : A USAA escalation rep promised on a recorded line ( case no. XXXX ) the payment would be " fixed and reversed. '' USAA 's written denial issued the same day, finding the transfer " valid '' because " initiated by an authorized user '', a question I never raised. 

USAA will likely respond that I " authorized '' the payment that ended the promotional terms. I authorized a standing autopay in XX/XX/XXXX as a backstop to my manually executed payments ; I did not authorize this rule, nearly a year and a half prior, with the intent to erase a 0 % balance I had just paid {$540.00} to establish. This is a problem USAA created and could have easily avoided with sufficient disclosure. It was mentioned by USAA representatives that the payment completed only because an overdraft setting I never elected, serviced it, and only because reps withheld the no-fee return that would have preserved the terms. 

The XXXX promise to " fix and reverse '' concedes a correction was warranted. 

I assert that the ambiguity of whether or not a payment will process through overdraft, at USAA 's sole discretion, is not a peripheral detail but a structural defect : because USAA reserves the pay-or-return decision to itself and does not disclose how that discretion will be exercised, its own representatives can not tell a member what will actually happen to a pending item. 

The most I was offered was that the sweep would " likely '' be paid, a guess about USAA 's own undisclosed decision, not advice a member can rely on. That uncertainty is not neutral ; it channels members away from no-cost outcomes USAA never discloses ( such as returning the transaction ) and toward the one certain option USAA places in front of them : a USAA-originated, high-interest loan. A program too indeterminate for the institution 's own staff to explain can not be one on which a member makes an informed decision.

I therefore ask the Bureau to obtain the recorded calls, my overdraft enrollment records, and the transaction coding of the XX/XX/XXXX sweep, and to examine the default enrollment of these overdraft " protections, '' the selective failure to alert, the steering of a member from USAA 's own 0 % obligation into USAA 's own 16.39 % loan, and as the root of all of it whether an overdraft program whose discretion USAA will not disclose, and whose own representatives can not explain, is unfair and abusive under XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief