Where To Go and What To Do Next-Texas

You can go through the following url to know about the NACHA rules and regulations:
"http://www.nacha.org/c/achrules.cfm"
A good knowledge on these rules will help you deal with the situation in a better manner.

Thanks for the link. However, you can only get a very limited amount of information on the NACHA rules. The NACHA has the rules themselves online, but you have to pay for them.

NACHA rules apply more to the bank being able to recoup their losses from the Originator. What you want to quote are Regulation E rules, which are for consumer protection. If a customer states that he or she revoked authorization prior to the initiation fo the debit, the bank is being told that the transaction was not authorized. Regulation E requires the bank to investigate the transaction and make a determination on whether it was authorized. If you have documentation that you clearly notified the ACH originator of your revocation and there was ample time to stop the transaction, that should be proof enough that the transaction was not authorized. Regulation E requires that a refund is issued to the customer, subject to the rules regarding a customer's liability in Sec. 205.6. I would try again at your bank and specifically ask to speak with the branch manager.

Thank you for the response.

I did dispute these ACH debits with my bank and provided the ACH revocation letter faxed to the PDLs. The bank did their so called investigation and determined that the ACH debits were authorized. When I asked how, they kindly told me that the letter I had faxed was not valid and essentially did not revoke the ACH authorization. Additionally, the bank is telling me I needed to revoke the ACH with them, which does not sound completely correct.

I have been speaking to a branch manager and he has been helpful. The bank claims department at first did not even want to do anything with the dispute until the branch manager got involved. Really did not even want to take the dispute. From what I know, the branch manager can only do so much.

Just recently, I had a representative of the bank tell me that it will be hard for them to get the money back from the originators, if they refund the money to me. Ahh, the real reason they do not want to help me.

Yes, but your bank is required to follow Reg E. If you revoked authorization with the originator (the PDL) that's all you had to do. Your bank can ask you for verification of the revocation (which you've given them) but they are REQUIRED by Reg E to refund that money and any fees incurred. NACHA is what will help the bank recover THEIR money from the PDL but has nothing to do with you. You've done your part. As long as the date of your letter is prior to the charges, they must refund. If they continue to give you a hard time about this, call the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Bank and file complaints. These 2 agencies regulate banking and will ensure that federal regulations are being followed.

Who do you bank with? I am surprised you are having so many issues. First I called the branch manager and explained my situation. I walked in, closed account, and opened new account. All ACH attempts on old account are returned, and all ACH deposits meant for the old account automatically go into the new account.

I hope you get it worked out.

OhioGal1 - What you are saying is what I thought. I think the bank is somewhat giving me the run around. However, what I also think is the PDLs maybe side-stepping the law in the form of finding a loophole in the Electronic Fund Transfer Act by the Definitions section where it defines a "preauthorized electronic fund transfer" with the recur at substainally regular intervals language. Most of the contracts that I have actually read state a one-time debit of xxxx. An argument against that is the option to rollover and how they may or may not word the rollover in the contract. In these contracts, I have also found where the PDLs put wording that you are unable to revoke and at the same time in a different paragraph the contract will state something like if you revoke the PDL is authorized to do such and such and then in the actual ACH Authorization section, put a statement that you can revoke. Everything is very convulted and confusing, which I would guess is somwhat on purpose. I also seem to remember somewhere that in my research I found some interpretation where that even one-time scheduled payments fall into the preauthorized catagory, if done before the payment is due. I wish I could remember where and if it pertained to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act or something else.

From what I have seen, if the orginators want to be difficult, I would have thought my bank could use the NACHA to help them. Your comment, confirms my thinking. I will mention this the next time I speak with my bank and see what they say and the reaction to it.

Thank you for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. I am aware of that option as I had called the State AG office and they told me about that regulatory body. If I get no further action from my bank, it looks like my next step is to file a complaint with the OCC.

As a note for others that use the forum later, the OCC is the overseer for national banks. At one point I had found the information for the overseers of each type of bank in the US, but of course I did not bookmark the link. Here is a link for the OCC: http://www.helpwithmybank.gov/ for others that my view the post at a later date.

JK2653-The account in question is with Chase. I am surprised also. It seems like this issue is rampant in Texas and maybe elsewhere, as when I have talked with the different people at Chase they seem to know all about it and want to give standard answers of sorts to their customers.

Do you mind me asking what bank you are using? Maybe I have some branches where I am in Texas. Although, I will not be doing this again, but to have better customer service than I am getting with Chase.

You might also try contacting this group. I'm just guessing at the email addresses based on their format so, if they bounce back try eliminating the middle initial. These are Executive Committee members at Chase.

James.dimon @jpmorganchase.com
Frank.j.bisignano @jpmorganchase.com
Douglas.l.braunstein @jpmorganchase.com
Stephen.m.cutler @jpmorganchase.com
Ina.r.drew @jpmorganchase.com
Martha.j.gallo @jpmorganchase.com
Scott.e.powell @jpmorganchase.com
Barry.l.zubrow @jpmorganchase.com

I live in Texas, and I bank with CapitalOne. :)

Thanks again OhioGal1. The local branch manager gave me the 800 number for the executive offices and have been working with someone there. None of the people you have listed, but...

JK2653-Yep, CapitalOne is where I recently opened an account.

The people I listed are CEO, CFO, CRO, COO, etc. I don't doubt that you weren't put in touch with them. :) Please do tell us how this works out for you.

A local branch manager gave me the 800 number that goes to the executive offices to call. I have called to see what, if anything, they could do about disputes. I got a call earlier this week from the executive offices giving the Chase position on the matter.

The executive office person told me the same thing as the original claims people. Essentially, the claims are for PDLs, in which you did receive benefit (in the form of a payment) and the contract you signed blah, blah, blah ....

So, for now, the PDLs have somewhat won as Chase is not making them honor the rules and does not seem to be interested in really helping their customers. With what I got from the executive offices, I do not see the need to email the C-level people.

For the bank, I am filing a complaint with the OCC. I do not expect much to come from it, but maybe it will help someone in the future.

BEST ADVICE:
CLOSE THE ACCOUNT. See the sticky about closing your account.

For anyone that me read the post in the future, I would also suggest this. If you have not closed your account already from some reason after ACH revoke letters have been sent, go to a local branch to talk to the brach manager before doing anything else. We noticed the debits on our account the day they hit and they were pending on the account. From what I have learned later, a branch manager can go in and send the pending debits back before they officailly hit the account. Taking this action would have caused a lot less heartache and pain.

For the people that have read the thread, I thought I would provide an update on the situation.

It appears that we have finally talked to right person at the bank. We had received a call from the bank late last week and returned the call on Tuesday. The call was from/to a person in the bank's ACH department. The person said that the PDLs were pushing back and that she had all of the contracts and she wanted some documentation from us. So, resent basically the same paperwork as was sent to the claims department at the bank.

We hadn't heard from the person any further, so we called back to see what was going on with everything. The person started by saying we did have contracts, etc., etc. The person started reading parts of the contract and promissary note to us. The person was reading and said blah, blah, ACH Authorization is revoked. Once the person mentioned revocation, I said exactly. The revocation is the whole basis of the claim that the debits were unauthorized. We are not disputing that we do owe the companies, that is between the companies and us. The fact is their ACH authorization was revoked and the companies ignored it. Proceded to explain again that the revocation was sent on such a such day and the disputed debits were after that day. The person mentioned the 60 day time limit and then was told these are well within 60 days and proceeded with the dates of debits and when the disputes was filed.

It seemed like once the person really found out that there was no intent of fraud on our part, the person double-checked her NACHA rules asked a couple of questions and said well sure these debits can be reversed. While we were still on the phone, the person made the credits to the account and got the appropriate approvals and sent via email an affidavit that the different rules mentions that needed to be signed and sent back.

At last, someone who knew what they were doing and not going by some script that was written. And at long last, we got our money returned. This took almost three weeks of being pretty persistant and not wanting to accept the answers given.

I still am not sure how the person who we dealt with in the ACH department got the claims to look at it as everything I had received from the bank stated that the claims were closed. But, I am sure glad it happened.

Now, on to the next part of the process. Dealing with the PDLs to get them paid back, which started calling a couple of weeks back. Wish us luck. We will be so happy when this is all done and the monkey is off our backs.