A U.S. BANK - USBancorp Five Star Screwing! (updated 05/27/03)
Written: Mar 12 '01 (Updated May 28 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: None: IMO they're incompetent and arrogant
Cons: See above
The Bottom Line: NO concept of the term "customer service"; the Five Star Guarantee is a joke; IMO they're incompetent, arrogant, and don't care if you're a customer or not.
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| ychromosome's Full Review: U.S. Bancorp |
For more information about what U.S. Bank did to us, other peoples' U.S. Bank horror stories, the truth about the "Five Star Guarantee", and information on and links for customer complaints, consumer abuse, scandals, fraud, embezzlement, lawsuits, and regulatory fines involving U.S. Bank and USBancorp, see:
http://www.usbank-5starscrewed.0catch.com
NOTE: As of April 2001, US Bank was taken over by Firstar Bank. The new CEO is Jerry Grundhofer, younger brother of US Bank's CEO, Jack Grundhofer(*). Nothing appears to have improved.
News Flash, 12/12/02 US Bank accused of racial profiling. Apparently there's no Five Star Service if you're black and wearing sunglasses; but the white guys in sunglasses still got served. See:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/12/12/3d.or.sunglassessuit.1212.html
Our U.S. Bank Nightmare: The Five Star Screwing
In 1998, soon after the takeover of the "original" US Bank, we made a simple transfer of funds at a US Bank ATM from our savings account to our checking account. About ten days later we were notified by the bank that one of our checks had "bounced". When US Bank "customer service" was contacted, they advised that the ATM transfer had never been processed. Thus started our nightmare.
The bank proceeded to bounce every check written after the ATM funds transfer, a whole month's worth, and then charge various overdraft and penalty fees against our accounts. We eventually advised the bank that the problem was their error, that we expected FULL restitution for all funds improperly removed from our accounts, and that we would be assessing our own "penalty fees" against the bank for each check that was inappropriately overdrafted or returned NSF.
The bank ignored us for more than 30 days, although by law, their own policy, and the customer agreement, they were supposed to respond to us within 10 days. Eventually, US Bank had expropriated some $ 200 from our accounts in penalty fees. They eventually returned about $ 100, and claimed "all had been made right". BULL! They still had $ 100 of my money. We advised the bank that we were going to withhold payment from our CreditLine account, in the amount that they had inappropriately taken from us, until full restitution was made. The US Bank response was, in an unsigned letter, "sorry, but you were just inconvenienced", and there is nothing you can do about it and we are not going to pay restitution or penalties.
A court summons was served on Mr. John Grundhofer (CEO) a week before Christmas 1998 (Merry X-Mas Jack !). Within 2 days, US Bank began calling us on a regular basis (2 - 3 times per week) demanding payment on the CreditLine account. Given that legal action had been initiated such demands were inappropriate, and possibly in violation of various federal or state laws.
We went to trial in February 1999, and won hands-down. The judge ruled that the customer agreement was reciprocal, and awarded us full restitution of fees imposed by US Bank, plus the amount of penalty fees that we had assessed against the bank. The judge gave a stern lecture to the bank's representative regarding what he considered "highly unprofessional conduct" on the part of US Bank.
We advised US Bank, immediately after the trial, that we would pay them the full balance of the CreditLine account, when they satisfied the judgement, providing that they had not adversely impacted our credit. It was a "no cost/no embarrassment" option. But, they ignored it.
US Bank finally satisfied the court judgement in March 1999. When we checked our credit reports, there it was: They first started posting derogatory information days after the lawsuit was filed, and then, without advance notice or demand, "charged-off" the account as bad debt just days after we won the trial.
We notified the US Bank in May 1999 that the set off CreditLine account was in dispute, and attempted further negotiated settlement. Again, they ignored us. In fact, they didn't respond to the dispute notice until 3 months later: well after the required 30 day response limit.
To add insult to injury, they tried to sell the account to a collection agency in June 1999, even though the account was in dispute, and they had yet to respond to the dispute notification [the collection company promptly gave the account back to them when the were advised of what was going on]. And, they continued to report the account as "charged off as bad debt", without indication of consumer dispute.
After months of attempting to resolve this issue with the bank, we had to file a federal lawsuit against US Bank (fair credit) in 2000, to protect our ourselves and our credit history. U.S. Bank responded by using every tactic possible to extend the process and make it more costly to us. We settled with them in early 2002. It cost us a bundle in legal fess and costs, but we finally got them to remove the inappropriate negative information from our credit reports: Something they could have and should have done way back in 1999.
(*) Jack Grundhofer: The man that publicly declared, "I love to fire people". The man brother Jerry gave an $ 8 Million retirement package to (talk about robbing a bank).
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
ychromosome
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Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 8 members
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