Associated Bank
Reviews and Complaints

Your website is terrible. Every other time I try to make a payment it will not go through. Happened again today. So I tried over the phone and that wouldn't work either. Do you want my money or is this some kind of set up to try to get people behind on their loans? I have an 850 FICO and want to keep it that way.

I agree that this is annoying and sketchy and a downright slimy way of doing business. Unfortunately, banks are in the business of making money, not helping people. I strongly concur with Elizabeth Kay regarding credit unions...so much so that I have accounts with three different credit unions in two states. I have never had my accounts messed up because of a change in credit union policy. In regard to your specific situation, the grocery store (and this goes for nearly all stores with banks in them) leases the space to the bank and the bank, in turn, gets "stomping ground" rights to the store. This is why you were accosted while trying to pick up groceries. Banks love grocery stores because the store funnels customers directly to them without any effort. Slimy, slimy, slimy...and they do it in the name of "convenience" and "serving the customers needs". I am very sorry that you were taken advantage of by a bank. I would take the complaint directly to the president/CEO and not let up until they apologized for being slimeballs.

Well if you already had an account elsewhere you could have simply NOT opened the new account.
Changing the rules is what banks do. That is why I use credit unions instead.
You could simply use the account (put money in or take it out regularly) or close the account.

Frankly I am confused as to why this is the banks fault and not yours for getting an account you didn't need. It is no different than Applying for a store credit card while out shopping then finding out that it has a 19-22% interest rate.

Associated Bank charged me $293.00 in fees on two charges of $21.53 that Virgin phone erroneously charged to my account AFTER my Virgin account was closed. I submitted a dispute. After waiting almost 2 months, Associated sent me a notice that they were applying the fees and Virgin's charges. AB provided a copy of Virgin's generic form letter that referenced "attached call log" but there was no call log included. I called AB's loss prevention technician who said he never received the call log and that I had to go after Virgin for the missing call log. I guess he was too busy/lazy to do the job required as a banking professional.

How can AB reject a claim based on a generic form that had nothing to do with my case and no documentation? The fees, baby! It's all about ripping off customers.

They charged me 7 times the amount of the the original charges.

I HATE associated bank! They just run my husband and I into the ground (yet again!) with their stupid fees and it wasn't even our fault! We deposited a payroll check and then paid our bills. Well that money wasn't available right away (tho IMO it should be!) so now we have fees up the wazoo, and our card was never declined either, And by them taking out their fees without me knowing we were overdrawn again. So now both time it was their fault and now we don't have money for groceries or other bills. In which we have 2 young kids, by the way. You think they care? No they don't.

I just had the same problem today with Associated Bank. I was looking online for any lawsuits pending against manipulating the debits/credits, and processing of them. If you have any news or know how I can take action don't hesitate to email me @ daniel.vanhelden@gmail.com Thanks!

P.S. After I get my tax return I plan on closing my checking account and moving it all to Anchor Bank. If this bank does this please let me know as well. Thanks again!

I also had been charged four overdraft fees of 35.00 dollars a piece in the last week, of which NONE make any bit of sense when I had money in my account by checking my mobile banking app, so I got gas. Then saw three overdraft fees the next day. Worried, I called customer service and she refunded me one due to "confusion" . But couldn't explain why the other two were there, they took my whole paycheck and had no remorse that I work part time for minimum wage and try to get by every month. She told me she switched my account to overdraft protection... I got another charge two days later when a fitness club deducted their dues..I called and told them if they weren't closed on Martin Luther king day I could have deposited money for that! I told her that the lady I spoke with the othe day assured this wouldn't happen again...not worth my breath I told her ill be in today to cancel my account with the worst bank I've ever experienced, they took a total of 150 from me!

i agree with what all of you are saying... the NSF fees and overdrafts are a joke. My girlfriend as well as myself all in one week had the same problems. mine was slightly different though. on paper it says "4 ATM transactions per month free" with advantage checking. not 4 free or 3 or whatever else they can come up with such as per cycle. everyone at Associated bank words everything different than thier customer service department and vice versa. i got my pay check through direct deposit and then paid my bills. Thier security team thought it was "suspicious activity" so they froze my account with 1.84 left in it. Now, if the activity was so suspicious why wasnt i notified? i could not get anything under that amount or equal to that amount. they then charged me 3-1.00 fees for "balance inquiries" when in reality as soon as i put my pin number in the only service i got from that ATM or Associated bank was " contact financial institution" so i called customer service to figure out why my account is frozen even after i told them to unfreeze my account i was charged these fees. so at this point im at ($1.16) in the hole.because they were ATM fees i was not charged the 35 dollars. because thats fees that compound fees for getting fees that they gave you, which i was told is illegal. nothing would tell me my balance anywhere. online, or phone service. a couple days later my vehicle insurance company tried to push something through and put me in the negative which i knew would happen. this has happened a few times and never been an issue and i always repaid the bank in a timely fashion. that im not disputing sometimes you have to pay a little extra to make ends meet. Because my account was still frozen at this time Associated bank gave a "returned service fee" of $35 then also charged a $35 NSF fee. the $35 NSF fee is a charge for them having to pay the item. Now the problem with this is my item was never paid AND THEY EVEN CHARGED ME FOR HAVING TO RETURN IT when it was thier fault they did not unlock my account prior to this incident at my own request with proper identification and passwords. so at this point they owe me 73 dollars. by the time my direct deposit comes in again it would be a total of $105 for problems they created by "trying to secure my financial stabilities and gain" stay away from this bank im getting out as soon as possible. please contact me if anyone can help R.A popo9mm04@yahoo.com

I also have problems with this bank. I wrote 3 consecutive checks, the first 2 were for $10 each and the third was $124. Instead of taking the 2 $10 checks, which were the first in a sequence of numbers, they took the higher check causing the 2 $10 checks to bounce causing a domino effect and in the end costing me over $700 in overdraft fees. I kept my register updated and knew the last (the bigger of the 3) would bounce, and even entered it into my register with an OD fee; however, the Bank itself chose the bigger of the 3 thereby resulting in $70 I had not been prepared for...according to my register, I still had $3.93 before my last deposit, but according to the bank, I was in debt to them. I have been on the phone with several people at the bank, and the most they will refund me is $280. I have reported their improper practice to the Better Business Bureau in hopes of getting this nonsense to stop. Also, I was curious as to WHY they continued to allow me to make debit card purchases, which 90% of them were under $10 each, and they said because they allow a $500 overdraft before they start denying any debit purchases.

If you ask me, they are wrong in so many ways for allowing this. Did you know the banks are making a killing on people who go into overdraft? I saw it on the news and sure enough, I got slammed with their malpractice. I just hope the BBB can do something for me. I work hard for my money, and not to line their pockets either. I am furious about this...somethings gotta happen to make them stop.

Associated Bank has given me and my husband nothing but problems. I have had so many overdaft fees like in the other complaints I have read about. I have looked at my bank account online and have had the money for transactions, but there is something funny going on that they do to manipulate the numbers. Keep in mind that when you get gas the credit card companies that are approving them take more than what you pumped, from your account. I just checked my account today and seen that there is a continuing overdraft fee and I have carried a balance of over five hundred dollars for the past week and have had no overdrafts. I don't know what is going on, but they need to be investigated as well as other banks that practice this type of banking.

Associated Bank is awful. I miss it being First Fedral. I have been with First Federal and now Associated Bank for 6 1/2 years. I recently over drafted my checking account $2.85 and was charged a $35 NSF charge. It was my fault, but I put money in the account the very next day before the transaction even had a change to post to my account. I went to the bank to explain what had happened and they wouldn't even hear me out, they just gave me a card to call customer care. If I wanted to call an 800 number, I should just bank in a different state. So I sent a message to the online department, didn't get a responce in 24 hours, so I went to a different branch and talked to someone for 35 minutes, who in the end just resorted me back to the 800 number. The refunded me $20 of the 35. Finally got a reply from the online customer service people who said it looked like my issue was resolved. Sent them yet another message asking them to refund my $15 and they wouldn't because it wasnt' due to bank error. I am already in the process of switching banks. Not because of the $35 NSF charge that was my fault, but because of the lack of customer services.

We all need to go further to straighten out their act. I am told that the banking commission has no authority, but the currency exchange office in Texas does have authority. I will find their address. I heard from other people too, same stuff. I still can't believe how they handled this-not wanting to look at the paperwork proof, talk about the incident, and calling the cops to "take me out" Her name was Laura who made the call. have been told by others, she has a very dark personality. The officers were nice, understood the situation we had. The bank made a very bad fool of themselves showing customers what they did-by what we discussed, right in front of the customers. Laura sure is not meant to be dealing with people in customer service. Maybe a prison.

Wow guess i should have spell checked first :-)

File a Complaint withg the Better business Burea bbb.org I believe.Thjey did this to my daughter and whenthey recewived the complaint from bbb they refunded Every Cent to her!

Associated Bank posts debits from largest to smallest on a certain day. So, if you had $200 in your account on Monday, and you spent $5, $15, $25, $40, $10, and $175 on Tuesday in that order, the bank would post the items at the end of the day in order from largest to smallest. $175, $40, $25, $15, $10, and $5. Then, they assess NSFs based on that so you would get charged for 3 NSFs instead of 1.

WHAT A RIPOFF!

I recently received over $200 in overdraft fees because when I checked my account online, it DID appear that I had sufficient funds. After I received these fees I went online to check my account again to verify and it appeared that I actually did NOT have sufficient funds. I did notice that they did debit the largest amounts before the smaller amounts but thought nothing of it. I did take full responsibility for these overdraft occurances since I should have personally balanced my account instead of checking the balance online periodically. I called the customer service line to inquire if it would be possible to waive any of these numerous fees for me since I had been a loyal customer for over 4 years and had never, ever overdrawn from my account before this one occurance. Customer Care gratiously offered to give me $50 back in overdraft fees and even added a COMPLIMENTARY! check book register so I could balance my checkbook. Wow. I asked why he stated that it was "complimentary" and questioned if people actually PAY for checkbook registers. So I just took those care of all of the fees and made it a point to never ever overdraft again. A few months later I happened to use my online bill pay service (through a third party vendor: mycheckfree.com) they (mycheckfree.com) debited my Associated Bank account to pay my bills instead of debiting my US Bank account. After unsuccessfully trying to resolve the situation with mycheckfree.com, I called customer care to let them know about the error and they had a "too bad, so sad" attitude with me and told me that "obviously (I) had authorized the transaction." I had to go into the bank and inconvenience a personal banker. After about 30 minutes of waiting and 15 minutes of explaining my situation, the personal banker reluctantly told me that if I were to sign some form, she would TRY to take care of the situation for me. Why didn't the Customer Care associate let me know that all I had to do was simply fill out a form? And why did I have to argue with the personal banker for 10 minutes before she informed me about that as well. Another thing that Associated Bank could have done was try to address the problem and try to prevent it from happening again.
Example scenario:
Customer: I have overdraft fees. Complain, complain, complain.
Customer Care: I see you currently do not have overdraft protection and you have a significant balance in your savings account. I would suggest linking overdraft protection with your savings account. Or if you would like, you could also open a line of credit to link to your checking account for overdraft protection.
Instead, customer care has a "too bad, so sad" attitude and tells you that you "obviously authorized the transaction". What are they paying their customer care associates for since they obviously don't care about their customers?

Associated in now being sued for re-arranging transactions around to maximize the amount of over draft fee's as of 07APR2010. Instead of getting hit with 2, we got 11. At $35.00 a shot, you do the math. We have printed copies of our daily bank statement that confirm this. You can literally watch and see them doing this.
They also have this sneaky trick if you go out to eat and leave a tip. Let say you spend $30.00 and leave a $5.00 tip. Associated will clear the $30.00, then a few days later entirely delete the entire tranaction your account, then another few days later, put it back on for the full amount. You have to watch very carefully to make sure you taking into account the entire tranaction to aviod any complications. Never leave a tip on your card! Always pay the tip in cash.
$35.00 for an overdraft fee is assinine! I would be justified if they had a 1/2 decent online capabilities, or customer service line! Trying to talk to them on the phone or online is just as bad as talking to Dell if not worse! At least with Dell they have an excuse: they can't speak english.
I don't know who's sueing Associated, but I would sure like to jump onboard that train when it comes around!

Hi, me and my husband have a mix of the very same situations that you all have. Honestly we made a mistake with our checkbook balance. Which based on the balances that they show on their website we deserved only 1 charge. But somehow it turned to into 5 and then those caused to be in the negative so then it generated 5 more.

I am pulling my hair out of my head because as I look at the activity as they show it on their website for the past two months there are 3 things that they show put out balance into a negative. And collectively we have 15 overdraft charges. And then where do they come up with their variety of terms. I mean they call some Hold Fee charges, and OD Charges and Item hold item paid charges.

You call them and try to challenge and you get nothing but attitude and they say well the way you see it on the site is not how it really is.

I know it's not important, but I'm a Repulican and usually I'm totally for people taking responsibility for themselves. But I am not for anybody taking advantage. So to this seems like a great opportunity to utilize the Dems that I don't normally agree with. Please join in with me, I am going to be sending copies of my statements to my Senators, perhaps both MN and WI as well as my attorney General to file a complaint. Don't know if it'll amount to anything but it's worth a try.

Any chance would anybody join in with me. This kind of behavior needs to be called out. Email me to let me know if you will, Molly1976@live.com

Associated Bank posts debits from largest to smallest on a certain day. So, if you had $200 in your account on Monday, and you spent $5, $15, $25, $40, $10, and $175 on Tuesday in that order, the bank

would post the items at the end of the day in order from largest to smallest. $175, $40, $25, $15,

$10, and $5. Then, they assess NSFs based on that so you would get charged for 3 NSFs instead of 1.

WHAT A RIPOFF!

Same here. I forgot to write down two cups of coffee for $2.32, when I used my bank card. My checking account got so out-of-hand that I got over $600 in fees and couldn't keep up.

I agree, don't use that bank.

They have done the same to me and for anyone in the Green Bay Wisconsin area, Pioneer Credit Union is the best.

> Your payroll checks are available in full immidiately,
> Their on-line accounting is MUCH more real-time, ( I mean really, I have logged into my associated account literally a couple hours apart without making any other transactions and have seen different balances ).
> They do daily credits first and then debits ( gee doesn't that make sense, unless your tring to generate revenue )

All I can say is that if your with Associated, "Be Afraid ... Be Very Afraid"

They have done the same thing with me, especially over the last month. They say that they put through the larger amounts first, then the smaller amounts because they wouldn't want your rent check/mortgage pmt./insurance pmt., etc. to be returned NSF. How caring of them. In relity, they put the large amount through first so they can charge you 5 OD fees instead of just ONE! Beware of their fees for Authorization Holds! That's another way they get you!