Prime Rate Credit

Well, my inspiration for writing this particular post here is that this just happened to me days ago, literally. I have a checking account with a prominent bank, whose name I won’t mention here. I’ve had the checking account since I was in college and it was the only show in town, so I was basically forced to sign up for a checking account there so I could pay my rent with checks, among other necessities that only checks could buy back then (yes, there was no such thing as a debit card back then).

So, I’ve had this account for a good 15 years, and I’ve never had an incident that resulted in overdrafting as far as I can remember. So, about one year ago, I opened a separate business account. I pay all of my business expenses with the business checking account, and still pay for all of my personal effects with my personal checking account with said bank.

Well, things got a little confusing for me last week due to a flurry of activity in my life, and I accidentally paid for a credit card balance with my personal checking account instead of my business checking account, which is with a totally different bank. I didn’t have enough funds in my personal account to cover the charge, so therefore I was hit with massive overdraft fees.

I wouldn’t have minded so much, except I have questioned whether I could get overdraft protection before and was told “no” and wasn’t really offered the best customer service as to how to get it on the account. So, I was agitated, and I wrote to the bank asking them to remove the charges. Actually I threatened to leave and find another bank, which is what I full well meant to do.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised that they removed all but one of the overdraft fees. I guess my patronage does mean something, and to me, that meant a lot, so I stuck with the bank and will still stick with the bank. Oh, and I’ll be careful what accounts I’m paying business vs. personal expenses with too. Lesson is, I learned a very valuable lesson from all of this!