Everybody’s million-dollar-question is “How do you make money on Twitter?” Well, I managed to “make” over $60 this month, thanks to one simple tweet. Here’s the backstory (this also answers the OTHER million-dollar-question, “What’s the point of being on Twitter, anyway?”):

I keep my checking account with ING Direct right now, and I love it. While I am moving to a joint checking account with my lovely fiancé, my ING account is all mine and currently, I still pay some bills out of it while I make the switch. But for a period of time, I also had my “emergency” checking account with Guaranty Bank.

The reason for this was simple: ING has no branches, and in case I need to make an emergency transaction, I can deposit cash or checks immediately into my Guaranty Bank checking account, and then pay a bill if I need to. Except the big issue was that, once in a while, I would accidentally pay a bill out of my Guaranty Bank account while all my money was in my ING account.

For example, a few months ago, I accidentally drew my Bank of America credit card payment out of my Guaranty Bank account without realizing it. So, the money for the payment was sitting in my ING account, and Guaranty Bank winds up paying the bill and then charging me $37. That’s fair. It was my mistake.

But I accidentally did it again last month. This time, disaster struck. Guaranty Bank decided not to pay the bill. So when the charge came through, they took it, charged me $37 for a returned check fee, and then sent it back. Bank of America, for some reason, decided to try sending it through again. So Guaranty Bank took it, charged me $37, and sent it back again. Guaranty Bank does not have any type of email alerts or anything – they send a letter. That’s right, a snail mail letter. They might as well have given it along with a flask to a guy on a horse. By the time I got this letter, I was well over $70 in the hole and my credit card payment had not been paid.

Now, at this point, it is my fault. I’m not trying to skirt responsibility here. However, I do take issue with the idea that the bank could suddenly change its mind about how it handles these issues and then literally notify me days after the fact that this happened. If I have ever overdrawn on my ING account, an email pops up on my phone before I get my keys out in the parking lot.

So I closed the account with Guaranty Bank. I was done. If I needed another brick-and-mortar bank, I’d find a different one. I paid off the debt and closed the account after five years (and I used to work there!), because they took away fee reversal privileges from the tellers since I left there. I called Bank of America and the woman said she didn’t know why the payment was sent through twice, and that a cash advance was going to be taken off the credit card to pay the account and I would have to pay the associated fees, along with the late fees and the returned check fees. I asked if I could make the payment over the phone right then and there – after all, I still had the money! She said I could not, because this process had already begun and there was nothing we could do. It didn’t make sense to me, but I accepted it because that’s apparently what they do.

I waited, and the next week, I noticed all the fees hit, but the cash advance was not processed, and I had a double payment due the next month. I called back, and the next woman told me she didn’t know why I was told this, but they don’t take cash advances to pay accounts. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to make a payment over the phone – and that money was gone at this point. She also reiterated that the payment should not have been attempted twice. She then told me she would reverse the late fees and the returned check fees, and I would owe about $130, much less than the nearly $200 payment I originally owed. I thanked her and went on my way.

The following week, I saw that the fees were reversed but the payment was still almost $200. I called and complained, saying I had already altered my budget twice now for wrong information. The gentleman said there was nothing he could do. I hung up. Angry, I called back once more and spoke to another woman. She attempted to reverse another $40 (which she did), but it did not affect the payment due. She said she couldn’t do anything about it.

Furious at this point, I went to Twitter. I was shocked to see @BofA_Help on Twitter. I decided to publicly send them a message:

Like I said, I was angry. I wasn’t really expecting anything to come out of it, it just was my way of venting.

Next thing I know, I get a response asking for my contact information. I then get a phone call and I explain my situation to the woman. She calls me back later and says she doesn’t know how I got all this incorrect information, and she’s clearly not thrilled about doing this, but she tells me to pay the $130 and then notify her and she will adjust the rest of the payment.

I did. And it was taken care of within a day.

Now, I’m still not exactly a big fan of Bank of America. I think they need better training for their reps, as I received so much wrong information in such a short period of time that severely impacted my budget. However, I have to give them props for being so responsive and having a dedicated team on Twitter to help their customers.

It doesn’t stop there – there are plenty of companies on Twitter, and sometimes it’s easier to get access to REAL people by going the Twitter route. If nothing else, you should be on Twitter to have your voice heard by the customer service reps for the big companies that tend to treat you like dirt. That one tweet above was a throwaway thought, but it wound up finally getting me what I was told I was going to get. All my fees were reversed and I still paid the money that I rightfully owed.

Thanks, @BofA_help.

Do you have any cool Twitter stories to share? Drop them in the comments, we’d love to hear them!

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