Complaints On Banks: Better Business Bureau May Be Of Some Help

By Janet Peterson on April 17, 2010, 8:33 am Posted in Finance News

The Great Recession has made bad guys out of banks, with taxpayer angst channeled at government bailouts and the ‘too big to fail’ ideology of the Bush Administration. And now, it seems, some residents of Main Street are fighting back. According to the Better Business Bureau, consumer complaints about banks shot up more than 42 percent in 2009.

The BBB

“For the second year in a row, banks experienced a significant increase in complaints coinciding with 140 bank failures in 2009,” Stephen Cox, President of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, said in a statement. “Trust in the financial sector is already extremely low and the dramatic increase in BBB complaints against banks reflects the growing discord between consumers and the industry.”

Complaints

The BBB attributed much of the rise to complaints about overdraft fees and other charges, which people seem to be fighting more stridently as jobs and raises have become more scarce. Banking was only the third most complained-about industry after cell phone and television services, but no industry saw a spike in complaints as drastic as the banks. Telephone companies saw the second highest increase, at 11 percent.

Obligation

Businesses are not under legal obligation to settle BBB complaints, but ignoring the watchdog can land a company on a list of vendors of which to be weary. It’s not all bad news, though, as the BBB reports that banks have a 95 percent ‘resolution rate’, meaning all but five percent of the claims are eventually addressed. Most cases take 30 to 60 days to be settled.

 

The easiest way to file a complaint is through the BBB’s website, which you can check out here: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx. Those who feel they’ve been wronged by a bank can also take their case to the Federal Reserve, which also has an online system available at http://www.federalreserveconsumerhelp.gov.

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One Response to “Complaints On Banks: Better Business Bureau May Be Of Some Help”

1. dania zegular says:

   February 17, 2011 at 9:43 pm

   I had a checkings account with td bank. I deposited a check in the amount of $600.00, out of that check they cleared 100.00. The check cleared on a wednesday due to a holiday, from a saturday that was deposited. All of a sudden, by friday the account bounced. they stated that the check didnt cleared, after the money was cleared in the account. Plus the money that was taken out for those two days were considered overdraft fees for the amounts that were taken out. I called the bank and told them that, that wasn’t my mistake. They were the ones who cleared it. They said that can happen, and that im responsible for paying it. I told them clearly that they need to fix it, cause im not paying for something i did’nt do wrong. Plus they sent me to the collection agency, which i told them the same thing. But no one helped me out in this situation. Now i have to deal with another bad credit on my history for something i didn’t have anything todo with.