Instead of rewarding a 14 year old for working and saving money, my bank is taking her money.
I recently attempted to deposit cash via an ATM into my daughter's custodial account. Unfortunately, 5/3's ATMs are horrible and most of the time have an issue accepting cash deposits. This was one of those time and the machine ate $10 of my daughter's hard earned money and my ATM card.
Since this was after banking hours, I called the toll free number to explain my dilemma. After wasting over an hour being transferred to numerous individuals and being placed on hold, my daughter was given a "provisional credit" while 5/3 investigates this issue. Let me point out that my daughter is 14 and worked hard for her money!! In addition, I have been a customer of 5/3 Bank for over 20 years and have never requested any refunds, so I am not going to start by lying about a $10 credit.
The following day, I stopped by the local branch, whose ATM stole my daughter's $10 and my ATM card. The personal banker told me that they have been experiencing issues like this with their ATM on numerous occasions. The ATM will keep (eat) the card if the machine doesn't process the transaction properly (eats the money). With that said, they could only apply a provisional credit while they research the issue. This process could take up to 45 days to complete.
In closing, 5/3 knowingly has ATMs in use that do not process cash transactions appropriately. In addition, a multi-billion dollar bank is unable to credit $10 to my daughter's account in a timely fashion. It is bad enough that banks have all of these ridiculous charges in place, but why are they taking a hard working 14 year old's money when they clearly know that their ATMs are broken. read more