Ross

Another argument suggestion: Blame the fee on the bank, particularly on their technology. Ex: I overdrafted because my online balance wasn’t correct. They give you a little lesson on how charges take a couple of days to post to your online account, and usually refund your fee. Remember though, they will never admit they were wrong, but will refund the charges for the “confusion” they caused you. Also, remember to point out that (hopefully) “This has never happened before, I am a good customer!”

Brandon

I’ve gotten lots of fees waved by calling up. It’s definitely important not to take them laying down.

One good story goes like this:
I signed up for a new credit card (wanted to have an AMEX card for the international recognition and travel features and BoA offered me one with no annual fee) and while I was activating, I was offered a balance transfer at 1.99%. After offering the balance transfer, there were some connection problems on the line but I heard the rep saying something about percentages. I asked, to double check, “Are there any fees associated with this transfer”. The rep said “no”, so I said “ok, then transfer $2000 from my account with Citibank”.

A few days later, I see the transfer in my online account balance and a 3% ($60) fee attached to it. I immediately call up BoA and tell them that the fee is unacceptable and that I was told by the first rep that there would be no fee. They made some blah blah about how I was read the fee disclaimer and I explained exactly what had happened initially. After a few more rounds, I said “Fine, then just undo the transfer and forget it, I obviously transfered to _save_ myself money and with this fee that’s not going to happen”. (I had foolishly purchased a projector on credit that I wouldn’t be able to pay off for about 2 months, so figured that paying 1.99% was better than the 17.99 on the card I’d initially charged it to.) Anyhow, they said they couldn’t undo the transfer, and suggested I call Citibank.

I tried that, but it got me nowhere, so I called BoA back and asked that they remove the fee again. Again explaining exactly what happened with the first rep. I repeatedly suggested that they go and dig up the tape of that first conversation, because they will clearly see that they have a problem with their rep and not with their customer if they do. At the end of that conversation, this rep removed the fee and I’ve happily gone on with my life paying just $0.27 in interest on a 1.5month 2000 dollar loan.

This post has gotten long, but I do have one other suggestion to offer the readers here: If you are going to be late with a payment by a few days, for any reason, call your creditor up and ask for an extension _first_. I’ve twice had issues where I’ve forgotten to schedule an online payment in a timely manner and they’ve been able to extend my payment date long enough to get the payment in w/o fees.

Paul Singh

I was viewing my AMEX Platinum’s balance online just last week (actually on 5/21) and noticed that the balance was due on 5/22. (For those of you that don’t know, this particular card is a charge card and requires you to pay the full balance off every month to avoid HUGE late fees.)

So I requested an online payment that posted on 5/22 — exactly on the due date. When I logged in to look at my statement earlier today, I noticed that I had been hit with a fee that was nearly $100! I called in and learned that a restaurant I had eaten at around 5/15 managed to post their $20 transaction on the morning of 5/22 and therefore my payment from the previous night hadn’t actually paid off the full balance.

At the time, I figured I’d let it go as a “lesson learned” in paying attention to your accounts but decided it was worth a few minutes to actually call in and explain my case.

I picked up the phone, explained the situation politely, asked that the fee be refunded because my account had always been in good standing, paused for 30 seconds as they processed the refund and then wished me a great day. Total time spent was about 5 minutes from the time I picked up the phone and I’m glad I did it.

Lesson: Don’t be afraid to ask for the refund if you can show that it was an honest mistake — the worst they can possibly say is no.

Jago

This horror story is called “Honour Fees” in Australia. I come from The Netherlands originally and I don’t want to brag, but ‘we’ don’t have overdraw fees at all, because every bank will give you a credit of a 1000 or more euros on your normal everyday account, so you can go into the red with very acceptable interest if it’s necessary to use.

Anyway, I came to Australia opened an account with ANZ, deposited some money in it and because nobody told me or could not be found in their basic ‘reading material’ I thought that as soon as my money ran out I would not be able to take out any more.

Thought wrong – I went on a holiday into the country, with no ANZ atms to check my balance, and when I came home I found a letter saying that I was declared an Honour Fee. Don’t you just love that word? It turned out that I had overdrawn 70 dollars and that ANZ ‘happily’ gave out this money to me, but that they wanted it back, with an extra 35 dollar Honour Fee!! That is 50%!!

I was furious and immediately called up. I explained my case, but still they didnt want to budge (I was talking to a customer services rep who sounded like a machine, he was horrible) Since I was completely new to this whole overdraw idea in the first place, I asked that my account be closed for further overdraws.

“Of course sir, but do understand that..” And he started listing a litany of exceptions and things for which ANZ couldn’t be held responsible if it did happen. How hard can it be…? To close an account for overdrawing.. Still I had to listen to it for 5 minutes and say “Yes” to 15 different things before he could finally close my account for further overdraws. Or so I thought.

2 months later I went clothes shopping, big time. I had a rough estimate of what I should have in my account and since I was under the impression that my account couldn’t be overdrawn I just swiped it everywhere. A week later I got 2 letters, one for an honour fee of 35 dollars for overdrawing and one for 35 dollars for overdrawing more than 200 dollars!

*snap*

Phone – call – angry. Luckily this time I had a very friendly woman who immediately understood what went wrong and pointed out that the guy before hadn’t actually closed the account and that indeed I was already right the first time to ask for a waiver of the first fee! So at once she closed my account for overdrawing and waived all three fees! Even the one I had paid back!

Well THAT is customer service! (but I’ll be happy when I’m back in The Netherlands haha)

Enrique

When I call customer services, I am very nice to them.
Customer services do not set the rules. They just get stuck answering our questions or hearing our complaints.

May

I wish that credit card companies instead weren’t always trying to tack on extra fees and charges and that everything wasn’t this difficult. I saw that article in the WashingtonPost and I think its crazy how much money they make off all their hidden fees. One group that I work with, http://www.unfaircreditcardfees.com is trying to help with things like the interchange fees that we never even hear about that get tacked onto everything. I hope something gets done soon.

anuj

Good post… I tried that a few time but never worked for me though. Also, recently in the U.K there have been few similar but escalated incidents and the court has thrown these complaints out. Court says the customer has no legal case against them. But I guess it depends upon the way you present your case in the first place.

Aaron

Funny – I recently dropped my long-time credit union for an on-line bank due to this very same issue. I’d been a customer of my CU for over 10 years and, when I accidentally caused an overdraft because of an errant mouse click, I got charged an overdraft *twice* by my old bank.

One call to the on-line bank and they immediately waived the fee – literally before I could even finish asking for them to do it. After three calls to customer service, and an in person visit to a local branch, the CU finally waived just one of the fees.

There are two valuable lessons I learned from this experience:

1. Do everything you can to avoid an overdraft in the first place.

and more importantly

2. When it comes to getting what you want from companies, remember the old basketball adage: “You always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Julie

Thank you Ramit! I just got back from negotiating with my bank (hardly a negotiation, I was nice to them and they basically said ok!). I was glad I had the knowledge to use in case I needed it, which luckily I did not.

Simao

I just asked my bank to waive a stupid fee. They charge me a stupid “Stock holding” fee, that fee kills my profit with stocks.

They said no, I guess my only option is to sell my stocks.

Don

Thanks for the advice. It just saved me $29 with Amex.

Il Liceo » Blog Archive » Negotiation Skills:

[...] Finance blogger Ramit Sethi describes how he convinced his bank to waive an overdraft fee. [...]

William Reading

Wells Fargo will generally waive an overdraft fee something like once a year, but they do make a note of it in your account. When I had less income and was more likely to overdraft (Read: Starving College Student), I would close my Wells Fargo account everytime I overdrafted and got it waived and opened a new one.

Another note about Wells Fargo:

If it’s obvious that you will overdraft, their system will automatically reorder the posting of transactions from high to low in order to maximize overdraft fees. This is why I stopped using them and switched to USAA.

Sean Senthilnathan

Just a couple days after reading your article I got a $39 returned payment fee from my credit card company because I had entered the wrong checking account information for a payment. Haven’t been with the company too long, but I’ve made every payment on time…should I use the same strategy to try to get the fee reversed?

michael sparks

Wow I never knew they charged for overdraft. I think I’m going to send my bank a thank you note for being so great.

I get free checking, free overdraft, free checks, free ATM withdraws from any ATM, interest on checking over $1000, and credit rewards with my check card.

Philip Plante

Sean, CC companies will waive the fee upto 4 times a year, but it makes a note on the account.

I too made the same mistake a few months back and didn’t catch it until the payment got returned that it was from the wrong account. Since then I have been fighting with them to lower me back to a lower interest rate instead of the 29.99% I am on now. One simple fucking mistake and they are raping me.

I am making the switch to a 9.9% interest card hopefully in a week so Chase can eat it.

Steve

Be weary of Chase. With a credit score of 820 plus. They raises my rate to 23 percent because i closed a few open accounts. I used them for about 100,000 IN A year or so. Well after calling manager on top of manager – to lower this rate to ANYTHING lower 1 percent anything ?? NOTHING! I told the MGR I was going to move the account. He told me “YOU DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO” so i closed everything with CHASE. I will never use chase NOT EVEN their ATM service!

Bobby Saini

Thanks. Some banks are really good at making sure their customers are happy. I remember recently I was charged a $30 finance charge for paying my bill too early??!?! I was headed out of town for a month and I thought it would be best to just pay it all before I leave rather than do it while I am on vacation (internet security issues). When I got back and got my bill in the mail sure enough that $30 charge was there. I called in, the rep understood my situation and took care of it.

Generally, it comes down to how you talk to the rep on the phone if you are rude to them, yeah they can’t be rude back to you, but they can make sure that your attempt to get what ever it was done won’t be easy.

Doug Corbett

Your post inspired me. (And a 5-minute phone call was worth $60)
In March, my CU charged me $270 for insufficient funds (yes, 18 different transactions!)
I called them back then and asked if they could refund them, and they gave the easy answer.
After reading the What-not-to-do guide, I asked again using the magic techniques, and they gave me back $60.
Cool, eh?
Still not as cool as $270, but worth it in the end.

shannon

I’m probably the ultimate example of why it’s a good idea to ask your bank to reverse an overdraft fee. After reading this web page, I called my bank and asked them to reverse a recent overdraft fee that I’d incurred. They agreed to reverse it as a “one time courtesy” and then asked me if I wanted to enroll in their overdraft protection service. I said I was interested in getting more information on the service, and was told that I’d be transferred to a different department. I was on hold for some time, and then the customer service representative returned and informed me that I had actually already attempted to enroll in the service in August of 2003, but that the bank had entered my information improperly, so the service had never kicked in. She said she’d seen this “a few times before.” Well, I immediately wrote a letter to the bank, with all the details of what had transpired (including the customer service representative’s name–which you should *always* write down), and asked them to reverse every single overdraft fee I’d incurred over the last 3 years. They did so, and I came out of the whole thing with three hundred bucks in refunds. Since I’ve been attempting to take a much more proactive role in my finances lately, this really feels like a fresh start of sorts, so thank you very much!

Lower Your Cable and Internet Bill Today - Plus6 …a personal finance blog

[...] the extra money and finally decided to give them a call based on customer service blog posts I saw here, here, and here.  I called Brighthouse Cable and the conversation went something like this after [...]

Patrick

I had 4 overdraft fees from my bank, totally my fault. I used the techniques above and got out of paying 80 dollars of it.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich » An annoying email I got

[...] dig into each part. Cut costs? That means saying no. That means being merciless with budgeting and negotiating and making smart purchases for the long term. Making more money? That means entrepreneurship, [...]

b

i just asked bank of america to waive some of the 11 overdraft fees that i got slammed with when i allowed my checking account to dip below zero. they refused and the woman named Lynette didn’t even offer to waive a single one as a courtesy. i’m going to close my accounts with bank of america, i have been with them for 12 years and i don’t deserve to be treated like that.

It pays to be informed « centsprout

[...] discount or anything like that. But stories in the pf blogsphere, such as Ramit’s account of how to negotiate out of bank fees have inspired to me to at least give it a try. The worst they can do is say no, [...]

k

“I got that waived (with a fight), but imagine if you’re earning $400/week. Those ridiculous fees just took 10% of your income away, underlining this recent Washington Post article about Americans’ dissatisfaction with credit card fees.”
I make 100 a week.. since I am in Med school mostly and work when I can.. Imagine it then, when it takes about 30% of my income away.. I am not too happy..

Perpendiculous » Flawless Victory

[...] Ramit Sethi says: “Despite what you learned in sex ed, “No” does not mean “No” when it comes from [...]

scott

totally worked. i called bank of america, was on hold for about two minutes, told the customer service rep that i wanted the fee waived, she put me on hold for 20 seconds and then said, “okay.”

and now the fee’s gone. hooray.

Jeff_H

This works on occassion, but if they’ve done it for you before, they may not do it again. I recently experienced two OD fees of 37.50 each for going a negative $4 in “pending” transactions (before they actually cleared, and when they cleared there wasn’t a negative balance). I work for a bank and I can honestly tell you that banks are preying upon you to mess up. And, its not just due to consumer irresponsibility.

Let’s take for example that your a married couple who decide you would like to open a checking account…..
The personal banker offers you TWO debit cards (one for you and one for your spouse) and your online banking information so you can log into your account on the internet. They may also still offer you a check register and courtesy checks until your printed checks arrive. Then, you start to realize that you have options of direct deposit, direct payments, online bill pay through the bank, or through the company in which you owe, etc. You now have two individuals who may swipe their cards, or make online payments (all which do not post right of way, keep in mind…) and one check register. Not exactly a design of success. With all of these options and new technology , Neither individuals no longer have to bug tellers to cash their paycheck, or give them cash so they can buy groceries, nor do they have to bug any other customer service reps at other companies for these type of transactions. What do I get rewarded with? Not standing in line. Thats it. And the bank gets rewarded with getting by with less staff, less bank branches, and less paper and supply costs. They also get income from charging the store clerks for running automated debit/credit machines.
So what else do the banks ask for? That they get to charge me an arm and a leg when the design isn’t perfect?????? Bullshi*

You other bankers can run this “just avoid OD’s ” crap on me all day. Sure, thats easy to do if you have lots of money. In reality, your not sticking by your product!!!

Ask And You May Receive - A Day Late, A Buck Short

[...] some of the same techniques Ramit outlined in this article from I Will Teach You To Be Rich, I got both charges reversed without much hassle. Similar results [...]

Nikki

My husband called our credit union today and had them wave one of 4 fees. We are working on the other 3. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Your script worked wonders!!!

Saturday Reading # 2 « Vik Dulat - Life is Good

[...] I will teach you to be rich: Negotiating Out of Bank Fees Part 2 [...]

Sophie

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS POST!!!!!! I just got my bank overdraft fee refunded. I will tell all my friends about your site

Brittnie

I just called my bank…a few of my charges went through early, leaving me with overdraft fees. Still my fault, but it was a mistake that hasn’t happened for a long time. Called my bank customer service, and they refunded half my fees back to me!

Bobby

I just wanted to thank you for this post and the sample script. I just got off the phone with my bank. I spoke with the bank rep about 2 overdraft fees incurred in January and went through the script. I asked if she could do anything for me and she asked exactly what I wanted her to do. I asked if she could possibly ask her Supervisor and after a bit of a wait and an account check by the Supervisor, I was granted the waive of the fees. It’s strange how we are socialized to not fight back, but the pay off of money back and a slight endorphin high make it all worth to fight. Thanks again.

JB

Just got off the phone with Wells Fargo, it seems that they will only refund half now. That’s all I got and I read some of the other comments saying they only got half.

louis

haha this post help me so much. i called my bank and told them straight up i didnt want the overdraft fees at all and the telephone banker said “ok i will have those reversed for you right now so now you have 6 overdrafts cleared and have 210 dollars back into your account” thank you so much for the article, i would of never been so direct to a banker until now

Tony

Just got off the phone with Capital One and got a $40 late fee waived. It really is amazing at how simple and quickly the fee was waived. I followed the script exactly, asked to “please have the late fee waived” and the woman waived it without any questions asked literally within 30 seconds! I was hesitant to call, to be honest I was a bit nervous but now that I realize how simple it is I will be calling every time I get a fee. Thanks so much for the tip!

Jess

I just had an overdraft for the first time in years. I called my bank and in less than 90 seconds they agreed to refund the $35 fee. I pulled up this post, but didn’t even need to use any of the scripts. I just asked and they refunded it! Thanks for giving me the courage to call!

Linda in Phoenix

I have always found banks and credit card companies willing to waive fees when asked, but I struck out with Bank of America in Phoenix July 20. I had fallen below the minimum required balance, so when I realized my error, I went to my branch to deposit twice the minimum required balance and I asked that the $12 monthly maintenance fee be waived as a courtesy for having been a good customer for 30+ years (plus I have money in an account at BofA subsidiary Merrill Lynch). Alas, just that morning the staff had been instructed that from this day forward, ABSOLUTELY NO FEES WOULD BE WAIVED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, so I closed my account. Imagine, allowing a long-term, satisfied customer to walk for $12. Makes me wonder about the management of BofA. Makes me worry about my future with Merrill Lynch!

Finding a Good Checking and Savings Account

[...] There no fees, but it didn’t offer much else. For our joint accounts,though, we were looking something a bit better. We were on the lookout for a FDIC insured checking account that would do the [...]