To: Mark Stopa
CC: David Weintraub
From: Robert Johnson
Hi Mark,
I didn’t get to meet you when I came to your offices on Tuesday- July 19th but I did meet with David and was impressed by your operation and service that you provide. I am hoping that you will be able to dispose of my situation with Bank of America when the time comes as efficiently as possible. I am confident that you will.
David was telling me how horrible B.O.A. has been and with what information I have been able to acquire I can see how criminal their acts have been. It amazes me that not one person has served any time for what they have perpetrated on the public, much less not even been arrested- something only the government connected could get away with!
I informed David of a situation I had happen to me recently with the banking institution that I have been doing business with since 1986, Grow Federal Credit Union, formerly MacDill Federal Credit Union. David was shocked by what I told him and suggested I contact you with the details, and informed me that you have a dislike for most large banks. He mentioned that you “might” be able to do something for me to make this right. So I hope you can read this when you have the chance, I know you are very busy with your business and thank you in advance for looking at this. All of what has happened with Grow credit union has actually been the catalyst to what brought me to you in the first place, an interesting chain of events but I won’t go into details here. What follows are the facts of what transpired with Grow Federal Credit Union.
1) I started thinking about possibly purchasing another home and went to Grow for a pre-approval back in April. After dealing with their unbelievably bad customer service and being completely put off by their staff I decided to cash out my money market account to get their attention.
2) I went to the bank on a Tuesday and was informed by the teller that they wouldn’t have the funds until that Friday. I wanted to make sure they knew why I was withdrawing my funds and told the teller that I wanted this to go on record that the reason I was cashing out my money market account was because of their inferior customer service. I didn’t want this to happen to another member and thought I was doing them a favor by making sure they knew why I was dissatisfied. In hindsight, it’s been nothing but an aggravation and what now appears to be a huge mistake on my part.
3) On Friday I went back to the credit union to get my cash. We went into a back office and my withdraw was counted out to me. I never had to show identification and never even signed anything. I asked if I needed to sign something and the teller said no, even though she was holding my paperwork in her hand. I was given a receipt showing a cash withdraw from my money market account for the entire amount in that account. There was no fee mentioned or deducted.
4) On Saturday I went online to check my “checking” account and noticed there was an $885.00 withdraw fee for the money market withdraw. At no time was this ever mentioned to me, that there would be a fee accessed for this withdraw. This of course left me vulnerable for bounced checks.
5) After several days of trying to resolve what I thought surely must be a mistake, I was informed that they had a fee for cash withdraws over $3500.00 per day. I informed them that I never knew about this policy, was never advised of this policy and that since 1986 was never given any fee structure (hardcopy or digitally) informing me of this. They said it was listed on the website. So I went on the website and searched for this information. I had to click through two different links before coming to an Adobe file that needed to be downloaded to gain access to this mysterious fee list. Disbelieving that they expected their members to go through this process of having to download a file with fees, I contacted the branch manger to further dispute the matter. She rudely informed me that if I thought she was going to waive the fee, that “I was wasting my time”. Then she said, “I knew you would be angry when you found out.” It was then that I realized they had purposely withheld this information about a fee from me. They had spitefully withheld this information from me simply because I was cashing out MY money and causing a stink over of the terrible customer service I had received from them.
To date, I have been unable to get any help from the ACUA, BBB or any of the consumer help agencies. Since Grow Credit Union is a federal credit union, none of the Florida regulators can help. ACUA is the only regulator and all they did was send Grow a letter informing them of a complaint that had been lodged against them.
It’s frightening that this could happen, that a banking institution could hide their fees and then take your money after a transaction took place without the customer’s knowledge or consent. If I did something like this I’m certain I would be arrested and charged with a felony. I have completely lost my trust in banks.
Thanks for your time and I will look forward to hearing back from you when time permits.
Sincerely,
Robert Johnson