We didn't take your money!

I took a call from a customer today who had paid off the balance on her credit card last month. During that same billing cycle, a second payment came through, which caused an overdraft on her checking account.

She had that checking account linked to this credit card for overdraft protection. $100 was charged to her credit card and the funds were transferred into her checking account to cover the overdraft.

She wanted the charges removed because "the account was already paid off. I really didn't think you guys would take a payment for an account with no balance!"

There are a number of things wrong with this argument:

1. The account did, in fact, have an outstanding balance after the first payment had posted. She had paid the statement balance, not a payoff to include residual interest.
2. That account balance had never been paid in full before and she never requested a payoff estimate. What reason would we have to assume that she was suddenly going to stop using this card?
3. We did not "take" the second payment. She had her checking account set up to transfer a set amount of money to her credit card on the same day each month.
4. $100 was transferred into her checking account. It was never returned to the credit card by deposits or paid back by the customer.
5. The last associate she spoke with about this had already credited her account for the ODP transaction fee, as well as the interest she had been charged, as a courtesy.

Me: "Ma'am, that payment was not a debit from us. That was a monthly transfer that you set up with your checking account. You have to stop those transfers through your checking account."

SC: "I know but I don't understand why you didn't stop the transfers after I paid off the card! Why should I have to call someone about my checking account to stop payments to a card that's already paid off?!"

Me: "We don't have access to your checking account, and even if we did, we can't make those types of changes without your permission."

SC: "Well that just makes no sense! The Bank is The Bank; you should all have access to everything! This is just ridiculous that I have to call someone else about my checking account. You need to remove that $100 charge because that payment should never have been taken from my checking account in the first place to make it overdrawn!"

How about, no? The money was deposited into her checking account and she kept the money. And BTW, I really don't have access to checking or savings accounts, but I can see the account numbers and balances for verification purposes, and guess what? That $100 is gone.