ACU mistakenly charges members hefty maintenance fees

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This article was published 01/11/2021 (1622 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thousands of Assiniboine Credit Union members woke up Monday to a shocking $1,000, or less, gone from their accounts and few answers.

Jennifer Sadowski, 40, checked her account because it was the beginning of November. On the first day of each month, she pays property taxes, an alarm system fee and insurance.

“I noticed that they had taken the $1,000 out,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ so I tried to call.”

The hefty withdrawal was listed as a maintenance fee. Sadowski was put on hold upon calling the credit union, and she left a message for someone to phone her back. Meanwhile, the credit union’s social media posts regarding the error withdrawals were piling up with comments from angry members.

Sadowski received a call back, and by the afternoon, the money was back in her account.

“At first you think… ‘Oh good, the money’s back in there, and we’re done with it,’ but then there’s all the repercussions that come from after that,” she said.

“It’s just annoying, because it’s not our fault that we didn’t have the money,” she said. “I’ll probably end up calling around and letting (the organizations) know, but it’s frustrating to have to do that.”

She also worried her credit score would be affected. She messaged the credit union about her concerns on Facebook, where they told her they’d be involved.

“We are currently evaluating any other impacts on our members and if members incurred additional charges because of this maintenance charge we will work with them to correct those changes,” the credit union wrote in a response message around 3 p.m.

By 1:30 p.m., about 90 per cent of the erroneous fees had been reimbursed, according to Dean Beleyowski, Assiniboine Credit Union’s marketing director. The company expected the rest to be completed by Monday’s end.

The credit union was not hacked, Beleyowski said. However, he couldn’t say if it was a system error.

“Our investigation is continuing,” he wrote in an email. “What’s important is that as soon as we saw the issue we immediately took action to correct it.”

A member alerted the credit union to the problem at the beginning of the workday, Beleyowski wrote. A “few thousand” members were affected to varying degrees.

One customer reported a $13 maintenance fee — much lower than the $1,000 withdrawals others were seeing, but enough to upset him.

Paul McKie’s $1,000 was returned to him around 1:30 p.m. He didn’t receive an update; he’d noticed after frequently checking his account during the day.

“Your first fear is, ‘Oh my God, my account’s been hacked,'” he said. “Then I (had) gone to, ‘Oh my God, the bank’s been hacked.'”

McKie is looking for answers.

“I think they owe account holders a more detailed explanation as to what happened,” he said. “(It) just seems very bizarre.”

Assiniboine Credit Union has posted online it will provide more details via social media. The credit union will also use its investigation’s findings to “make sure it never happens again,” Beleyowski said.

A regular monthly fee ranges from $0 to $3 depending on the account’s amount on reserve, he said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com