Did I do the right thing?

you said the person you dealt with at the bank understood so i don't see a problem,but do get the account secured/put on deposits only before sending the letters.

I guess I was little concerned about the whole fraud. Like, it wouldn't technically be fraud until after I send the revocation letters but they still try to withdraw, correct? Maybe I'm just making too much out of nothing and should let the bank handle it.

i would make sure the account is secure before sending the letters.too many instances on here i read of people being drowned in red ink from the lenders going in and bleeding it dry.so no it's not fraud at all.again just be sure to bring copies of the letters after you send them.

I got the hard hold put on my account. Should I send the revocation letters now or wait until they contact me?

If your account is secure, go ahead and send your revocations.

Thank you!!

I'm asking because I'm in the same predicament. I'm having trouble with Pepper Cash dot com who owes me over $1500.

They told me that it would take up to 10 business days to receive a decision. I'll let you know what happens once I get a response.

I will be checking in regularly to see what happens.

Just as an aside, I just called Wells Fargo, too, and she read the disclosure to me (for me to agree to) and I said yes, of course. She said the same thing, that it would take up to ten business days before I know anything.

Apparently, it's going to come from the ACH itself. She said they'll contact me if they needed any more information.

I have filed complaints with the FTC, the BBB, the Ca Attorney General's Office (Kamala Harris is a shark when it comes to going after cases like these!), and the Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new Federal department monitoring this kind of fraudulent cases.

We'll see what happens...

Please keep me updated on your status as well!

I'm filing complaints with MD's AG office and the FTC today as well.

Update: Cash Jar responded with their canned response re: being governed by the laws of Belize. They have agreed to mark my account paid in full, but they owe me $485. What's my next step besides filing complaints with the federal and state agencies?

You can continue to push for a refund, which it's unlikely you'll get or you can save that PIF email/letter and be glad it's over :)

I am in MD too. I would suggest not contacting the AG's office. I contacted them way back when and they forwarded my complaint to the Maryland Commission of Financial Regulation, 500 North Calvert Street, Room 402, Balto, MD 21202. 410-230-6100 as they stated the MD Commission is the correct dept. to handle. They are very helpful and because of them and this site, I am now payday loan free. Good luck:)

There is no such term as "hard hold"! Hard hold is NOT a banking term...and I am an ex WF employee! ACH revocation is the correct way to stop an particular payment (s) from going thru...you must send it to whoever you gave the rights to plus give a copy to the bank.

FYI...there is almost no point in reporting offshore lenders. There is thing the agencies can do...they cannot force refund.

Soaplady, that's interesting! That's what the CS rep on the phone told me to ask for in the branch and when I told the branch manager, she knew exactly what I needed. She put the account into deposit-only status. I have sent the revocation letters. Got my direct deposit already and will go to the bank to close that account and open a new one.

I realize that I'm pretty much hopeless as far as collecting any refunds. I'm praying the fraud department will rule favorably for me and grant me a credit for at least part of the money I paid.

Thanks for the information, hornerk! I will file a complaint with Commission as well.

was relayed to me by the Wells Fargo CS rep inside the bank and the banker on the phone that same day, too. That's where I got it from. Maybe it's a new word they're using these days? Which, in itself, is pretty troubling since that could mean a LOT of people have been contacting them to stop ACH withdrawals from unscrupulous and illegal payday lenders.

Cjeudy,

I hope you're wrong about the chances of getting a refund from those illegal companies. I really do.

Just a quick update: account is still secure and a few days from being 100% closed (have to wait for 2 more DDs to be deposited on Friday before switching the information). I got, I'm assuming, an automated response from Bottom Dollar (the biggest offender - owes me over $1,200) saying thank you for your payment of $286 (the amount to pay the loan in full). Of course, that didn't happen. We'll see what happens next. I haven't received any phone calls yet, though it's only Monday and they would have pulled from my account on Friday.

Also, I'm trying to file a complaint with the CFPB but there doesn't seem to be an option for payday loans. Does anyone who has experience know what I should file this under? Even if nothing happens to these companies, I would at least like to report them. Thanks!

your AG(attorney general)and the FTC(federal trade comission).those two and that's it.

Thank you for your response, Paul!

Another update - Antoinette from MyNextPaycheck attempted to call me on my work and cell phones. I didn't answer either call. She left a voice mail stating she was calling from the "legal department" and to call her back. I then re-sent the ACH revocation email that I sent prior to the next due date. Someone forwarded that email to her and she responded to me with the following:

There was not an authorization revoke on your account, you didn't have any money in the bank, your payment bounced due to insufficient funds.

My response:

Let's try this again. I revoked the ACH authorization on Wednesday,
April 4, 2012. You attempted to withdraw funds from my account AFTER
that date.

I am more than willing to discuss making arrangements to pay back the
remaining balance on the principal, which is $160. I have given you
my terms in the original email.

She sent this while I was composing the message above:

MynextPaycheck is a tribal lending entity wholly owned by the Guidiville Indian Rancheria; a sovereign nation located within the United States of America, and is operating within the Tribe's Reservation. As a sovereign nation, this agreement falls under Tribal Law and not your state's regulations as we have sovereign immunity. If you are under financial distress and require an alternate payment arrangement please contact me directly at the number listed below.

And my response was:

As a Maryland state resident, I am governed by the laws of that state.
Again, I have offered payment arrangements. Please let me know if
they are suitable.

Let's see what happens next.

Thanks for all of the help here!!!

Another quick update: Wells Fargo denied my fraud claim saying that the transactions were authorized. I can call and request the documents that they used to come to this conclusion.

I got another email from Antoinette at MNP re-stating that they're a sovereign nation. As I'm not a fan of talking in circles, I just decided to ignore her. If she doesn't want to accept my terms regarding repaying the remaining principal balance then I'm done with them.

per the EFTA(electronic funds transfer act)once you give an ACH revocation letter.any attempts by the entity should be reversed immediately.wells fargo is violating federal law.that is unless you didn't give them copies of the ACH revocation you sent.

Wells Fargo sent me a letter telling me that the withdrawals have been authorized, but unlike with you, they didn't ask for ANY paperwork. I gave the dates to this woman/banker and she noted them. Then I asked if she wanted a PDF file of the e-mail exchange where PepperCash admitted they don't have a license to lend to California residents, but she cut me off telling me if the ACH needed paperwork, they'd call.

Well, needless to say, they didn't call. So they based their decision not on my complaint, but by PepperCash's weak claim they're a tribal lender (before, they were located in Costa Rica so they must've bought that "tribal" right to from the Chippewa-Cree in Montana) and therefore the loan was legit.

Then again, Wells Fargo has been cracked down on by the U.S. Government for laundering drug money, so did we really expect them to stand for us stupid little people? :mad:

I've got my denial letter, too, cjeudy. Wells Fargo has denied my claim stating the same thing.

This is preposterous. How can it be a legit withdrawal if the lender is illegal??

At the time of filing my complaint, I asked if she (the bankster at WF) needed copies of the e-mail exchange where PepperCash had admitted they're not licensed in the State of CA, but she cut me off rather rudely and told me that if the ACH needed more info, they'd contact me. Suffice it to say they never did.

So the ACH and WF base their decision on what PepperCash sold them. That's what it appears it came down to.

I'm going to try and challenge this decision because, for one, they denied the claim based on $191 not $1591 that was fraudulently taken from me. Then again, Wells Fargo is familiar with fraud since they have been caught laundering BILLIONS of drug cartel money, according to Bloomberg.

I am so pissed off by this. They KNEW PepperCash was lending illegally. It's not as if I'm the first person to file a fraud claim.

Banks in the U.S. are pathetic and corrupt.

You need to file a complaint against WF with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB).

Paul, WF told me that I needed to file the fraud claim in order to put the block on the account. But since I had to secure my account first, I did the fraud thing first, got the block put on the account the next day then sent the ACH revocations to the lenders. I can send copies of those revocations to the bank now but I'm not sure how much good it would do.

OhioGal, I am going to file a complaint with those two agencies after I speak to the fraud department regarding this and don't get a satisfactory response.

As a former Wells Fargo employee, I can tell you filing a fraud claim is barking up the wrong tree. You did authorize the transaction so it is NOT fraud. You need to pursue the ACH revoction per Reg E. It is your right under reg E to revoke ACH transactions.

You can't file a fraud claim until you've revoked authorization and the lender then ignores that revocation and debits the account anyway. It's not fraud until you've revoked your authorization, which is why you give a copy of that authorization to the bank.

This is exactly what I asked in my initial post re: "did I do the right thing?" The banker tells me one thing, I'm confused as why I would do the fraud claim first in order for them to block the account, etc.

At this point, I give up. The old account has been closed and I've filed complaints with the FTC and the MD AG office. I chalk this up to a learning experience that I will NEVER re-learn again.

Thanks for all of your help!