1st Financial Bank debited from my account without permission

[jds2006]

I was looking at my online WaMu checkings statement today and discovered that 1st Financial Bank, one of my credit card companies, debited $181 from my checking account without my permission. I live paycheck to paycheck, so this unauthorized debit resulted in 2 $33 overdraft fees. I know 1st Financial got my bank info when I paid them my monthly bill last month over the phone by providing my checking account numbers, but I NEVER gave them permission to automatically withdraw from my checking account and they NEVER told me that they would do that just because I paid for one bill over the phone.

How should I go about disputing this? Are there any laws that prohibit these kinds of things from happening to consumers?

 

[jlee]

Did the payment last month get returned, or did it go through?

 

[jds2006]

It went through.

 

[spidey07]

Just call up 1st Financial. You may have mistakenly signed up for automatic bill pay.

 

[Savij]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Just call up 1st Financial. You may have mistakenly signed up for automatic bill pay.

And ask them to give you a credit for your bank fees if it was their fault. You may want to listen to the phone payment message again to make sure there wasn't a line in there about signing up for autopayments.