Bank of the West Providing Credit For Cash Advance Fee

Bank of the West usually offers a bonus for signing up for a checking account, one of the additional benefits is that you can fund a small amount with a credit card ($500). Unfortunately at some stage these charges started being charged as a cash advance with no notice. Bank of the West has sent out a letter to affected account holders stating that a credit of $25 has been applied (less if the full $500 wasn’t charged to a credit card) due to the lack of disclosure about this charge being a cash advance.

Personally I love to see this level of customer service, I don’t think Bank of the West was under any obligation to provide a refund or disclosure about it coding as a cash advance (as it is a cash equivalent) but it speaks volumes about how they like to treat customers that they decided to provide this credit. It’s pointless to offer these types of sign up incentives if the actual product isn’t competitive and I’m sure this will see some customers making Bank of the West their primary deposit account.

Hat tip to Wyle_Coyote

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Erika
Erika (@guest_785895)
July 20, 2019 16:44

Yep I got this refund – what a pleasant surprise. It definitely increases my confidence in Bank of the West.

By contrast, Capital One processed this cash advance even though I’d had my cash advance limit reduced to zero and got a confirmation letter months earlier. When I called to protest, they waived the cash advance fee but not the interest. I always pay my balances in full so having interest accrue on my account that they would not remove had me really miffed. Given that this was Capital One’s mistake, I found it very troubling that they absolutely refused to do the right thing even when I talked to a supervisor. I may downgrade that card and stop using it as a result.

kudos to Bank of the West for outstanding customer service on this one.

Master 4
Master 4 (@guest_785847)
July 20, 2019 13:26

Glad to see this post here. I am one of the people who received the letter too. I did not know it was charged as cash advance, until I received the letter and looked back my previous statement. I must say I will not use credit card as opening deposit again, too much headache.

tsoib
tsoib (@guest_785823)
July 20, 2019 12:11

When the cash advance first posted, I called them about 4-5 times asking to reverse the cash advance or credit me for Chase’s fee. They never did anything about it. Chase was able to credit the fee though. I thought I was special when I got this letter this week!

Master 4
Master 4 (@guest_785846)
July 20, 2019 13:23

Really? I used Chase Freedom as opening deposit for another Credit Union and somehow it ended up as cash advance. I called Chase a few times and they said there nothing they can do although “they tried” to reimburse the fee, the system would not let them.

EatsPizza
EatsPizza (@guest_786495)
July 22, 2019 12:37

So weird, I’ve used my CFU for the opening deposit on at least 2 accounts and was never charged a fee or had it code as a cash advance.

SamL
SamL (@guest_785936)
July 20, 2019 20:11

But you knew before you did it that you were getting a cash advance. Do you actually think BotW actually did anything wrong, or did you just think it was wirth making a bunch of phone calls to try to get a bit of money?

Wyle
Wyle (@guest_786154)
July 21, 2019 18:21

BotW had a track record and recent DPs of account funding being tracked as purchases, so there was no prior knowledge of it showing up as a CA. Well within their rights to change things, but I, for one, would not have done cc funding had I known it changed.

With one call to Chase, I was lucky to get a courtesy credit for the fee. Otherwise it would have just been risk-taken/cost-of-business/lesson-learned and diminished the net bonus a bit.

tsoib
tsoib (@guest_799403)
August 16, 2019 20:04

Yes I saw the DPs that said it would be a purchase. When it showed up as CA, I paid the card off immediately and called Chase for a one-time reversal. They took care of it.

MSer
MSer (@guest_785822)
July 20, 2019 12:05

Based on how horrible BotW is for everything else, I highly doubt this was some sudden turn of generosity. More like a regulator got wind of the practice.

SamL
SamL (@guest_785934)
July 20, 2019 20:07

Huh? What practice? Why regulators?

Keynote
Keynote (@guest_785821)
July 20, 2019 12:01

That is nice of them. They went up in my book. I just wish they would pay the bonus quicker.

A S
A S (@guest_785806)
July 20, 2019 10:55

Interesting.. I wasn’t charged a cash advance fee by my credit card company, but was still issued a $25 credit by Bank of the West. The credit didn’t have any details and till I saw this post, I was wondering what it was about!

Alex
Alex (@guest_785824)
July 20, 2019 12:20

I got the same credit, and no cash advance fee back then. Got a letter in the mail explaining it 2 days ago.

Scott
Scott (@guest_785827)
July 20, 2019 12:27

Same here

EatsPizza
EatsPizza (@guest_786487)
July 22, 2019 12:31

Same here, no fee was charged and got a refund of $25 on the cc I did the initial funding with. Never got a letter either (or I may have ignored it — LOL). I’m still a few weeks away from doing the 4th required deposit to earn the bonus, hopefully nothing gets flagged and I still earn my bonus!

Sevillada
Sevillada (@guest_785791)
July 20, 2019 10:21

This is what i was talking about when we were discussing coinbase and the cash advance fee and i got attacked a lot. Coinbase didn’t even apologize, offered no refunds, and they also charged their own fee, so customers were charged twice for using a credit card. Not a single apology or warning.
Night and day customer service.

Vy
Vy (@guest_785805)
July 20, 2019 10:49

That’s nice.