Posted: Thursday, October 16, 2008 12:00 am
Albany resident is not the first, state official says
By Jennifer Moody
For the Gazette-Times
ALBANY - It wasn't a fortune, just $16.50. But it was taken from his checking account without warning or authorization, and its loss was enough to push Glen Hammersley into overdraft.
Now the Albany man is fighting both the original charge, from American International Group, plus $45.50 in overdraft charges from US Bank. He is filing a complaint with the Oregon Attorney General's office and is warning others.
He's especially angry because it appears AIG also docked him at least one additional $16.50 charge earlier this year - and because the insurance giant is the recipient of the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
"What they're doing is stealing from me. I've never had anything to do with them," said Hammersley, 53. "I cannot see how a company can come up with my account number and debit card and pin number and the whole works without US (Bank) giving or divulging that information, because I have had absolutely no affiliation with them at all."
Collecting unauthorized charges is called "cramming" and it's illegal, said Jan Margosian, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Justice.
Her division has received at least one similar call about AIG unauthorized charges earlier this year and 21 complaints about the insurance company in all since 2000.
Credit card and phone bills are the usual targets, but bank accounts can be hit too, she said.
AIG did not return a call about this story.
In Hammersley's case, the charge just showed up on his checking account on Oct. 7. He learned of it four days later, when he received a notice from US Bank about the overdraft.
Injured while working for the Oregon Youth Authority seven years ago, Hammersley said he lives on disability checks and can't just absorb a series of extra charges.
He called the bank, which told him how to contest the charge. Later, he learned from the bank he had been charged an additional $16.50 in July, something he hadn't noticed.
It isn't just US Bank, said Leah Grey of Portland, the other person who filed an AIG cramming complaint with the state this year. She said she found her charge on a Washington Mutual account.
Grey said that in May a telemarketer said she was eligible for an insurance deal as a member of Washington Mutual. Grey declined and hung up. About a month later, her checking account showed a $24.95 withdrawal for the insurance plan.
She is continuing to dispute the charge, but so far has received no compensation.
"If they did this to me, they did this to thousands of other people," she said.
Margosian said she hears cramming complaints about countless companies. Lists of consumer financial information aren't hard to come by, she said, so it's important people remain vigilant about their bills.
"It happens to people all the time, and it has for years," she said.