Consumer complaint received 2025-06-27 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low — Overdrafts and overdraft fees
Company: UMB FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MO

Complaint narrative:
Here 's an email that I sent to the bank manager that is a very good summary. The manager has never followed up with things they said they'd do. Short summary is I tried to rectify this. My account balance kept changing and I communicated with the bank several times. I have over {$1300.00} in overdraft fees and I deposited money and was told things were taken care of and they got even worse.

Email - I sincerely apologize for the delay it's been a busy start to the year and obviously considering the nature of my career a lot busier since Friday, lol. During the attached call, the representative told me that everything was being taken care of by UMB as a gesture for being a good customer. While I admit I was initially skeptical, I was hopeful that we were approaching a resolution. My main goal was to stop the bleeding, and then I planned to bring my account current. However, for almost a month, the situation kept changing daily with charges, chargebacks, and more charges. My biggest priority throughout this was to prevent further overdraft fees, which I did by depositing money into my account. Yet, I continued to receive overdraft fees, and it became increasingly confusing.

To make matters worse, other companies kept retrying to process the drafts, adding more complications. If I have to pinpoint my main frustration, its the fact that I called UMB, at least four times, and spoke with you multiple times. Im not blaming you for anything, but at what point should someone have suggested freezing my account to prevent further drafts from going through? I even made this request during my first call, though it was with a branch teller. Unfortunately, I dont think the call was recorded. 

Most of my negative balance is due to overdraft fees. For instance, during the XXXX weekend, I deposited over {$2000.00} in an attempt to bring my account current once I realized the mistake. However, due to the timing of the charges and overdraft fees, I ended up chasing my tail. I regret depositing the money before things were properly resolved and thought things would settle in the new year. Once that happened, I planned to make the necessary payments. To me, it feels as though the money just disappeared, swallowed up by multiple reattempts by companies to take payments, resulting in even more overdraft fees. 

If only my first call to the teller had been recorded, you would see that I expressed this concern. The teller even let me know that they couldn't even consider waiving any fees or doing anything to stop the bleeding until the account was current. Once it was a positive balance I could then go in and discuss the fees. I understand that its not your decision to freeze accounts, but my feedback is this : once an account hits a certain negative threshold, perhaps no further drafts should be allowed. Maybe the bank could have called me or taken other preventative actions. I receive annual calls from you, but no one thought to reach out to me when my account activity a time shows minus XXXX then minus {$100.00} then minus {$3000.00} then - XXXX then back in the XXXX then back up and down it was a yo-yo until it showed up positive XXXX dollars which is when this call occurred. I completely understand why the courtesy call happens it's a show of good faith in business and a potential to ask/listen for more opportunities for business. I do this for a living. I made multiple calls and can now review the call log to verify them, but this one this is the call I am referring to. 

The balance continued to worsen despite our conversations, and again, XXXX not blaming you for anything. I just hope you can take these points into consideration. Last year, I made {$100000.00}, and this year Ill make about {$150000.00}. I don't say that for show or who. I'm only saying that because I am the ideal client that you want at your bank every year my income goes up on average XXXX to 40 %. Residual income and I'm really good at career and reach your I gain more referral partners as I run several business networking groups around town. I'm also telling you this because I plan on getting a mortgage, and I was going to do that with UMB. Im willing to send over my tax returns for proof, as I dont want to sever this relationship. 

However, I hope you can understand my frustration. The only positive aspect of this entire experience has been you. You have been amazingresponsive, informative, and helpful, not just in this situation but also with previous courtesy calls. Your excellent service has kept me with UMB Bank. In fact, its the only reason I stayed after my XXXX bankers left. I had considered switching to a bank with more branches, or bankers in my network and better accessibility, but the customer service has always been what I valued most, even with the ongoing issues I've had with the app over the last XXXX to XXXX years. Even your other tellers and managers have admitted the app can be bad I mean even recently when I reordered a debit card for my other account they sent me an ATM card and it's not even universal I can only use it at UMB locations which again aren't abundant. I couldn't even use my own money when I had over {$7000.00} deposited for weeks I was forced to transfer to another account that I used for the sports stuff. Obviously that latter part has nothing to do with the reason we are speaking but it's just something I wanted to bring to the attention not to you but to whoever the powers that be are the app is terrible it is always on delay and it's very confusing. I can't begin to tell you how many times it's screwed me on the last and umb had given me credits for it. I'd run a card realize it was in the wrong account and then same day at same night transfer the money into that account it show positive only to hit me with multiple overdraft fees days later. You can clearly pull out my bank records on my accounts and see this is true. In the end I would still like to retain my relationship with the bank. With that days I want my negative balance removed from collections and the fees and I'm not asking for all of them to be removed. I definitely earned some of them with my mistake which again I called in next day. However the continuation of them has been a nightmare for me and now XXXX credit when I'm going to buy a home this summer. I've already been prey approved by and independent lender to see where I stood for over XXXX but I wanted to do my loan with my bank who controls the rest of my accounts. To simplify things and because I believe in relationships. My apologies for the long email. The phone call in question time and date that would've been recorded is attached for your consideration. Thank you again for your customer service. It truly has made it a better experience and I wish like you said I would've gotten to you sooner when this all began.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation