Last year, in January, my elderly mother lost her check book. When we contacted the bank, they quickly closed her account and opened another one for her.
At that point, something went wrong. Instead of moving her money over to the new account, the BBVA adminstration changed her money into a “loan” and began charging her interest and withdrawing $15 to $20 per month in addition to interest at 21 percent for her money. They called this “overdraft protection.”
When my mother noticed this in April 2012 and called the bank, they explained it away. And she accepted their explanation. She is 87 and does not like to deal with little inconveniences, so she does not bother to balance her account and look at all of the charges usually.
When I became aware of the situation last month and took my mother to the bank to clarify things, they explained that there had been a mistake made not at that bank, but by administration, somewhere in the clouds, but the fact is that the bank had sent a notice of this arrangement to my mother maybe more than once.
So according to the nice ladies at our local bank, since she had been notified that the bank had taken her money and then charged her to get it back with interest, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
At that time, we paid off the bank for the “loan” of my mother’s money to my mother in the amount of $388. So now she will not be charged for her “loan” to herself, or the interest, which of course did not go to her, but to the bank.
My calculations are that the mistake made by the bank has cost my mother $832, because someone did not just freeze her incoming checks on a closed account, but created an overdraft “loan.”
Victoria Duron
Idyllwild
