Wachovia Bank April statements are now arriving in customers’ mailboxes. Some customers are in for a surprise. The bank is now charging a $5.95 service fee for many account holders who use Microsoft Money or Intuit Quicken’s “direct connect” feature to download transactions directly into the software (without visiting the website). The fee is listed as “PFM Online Access,” leaving many customers confused about the debit.

I knew this was coming as far back as February because the bank sent a warning notice earlier this year. I promptly removed my settings in Quicken so the software would never try to connect to Wachovia again. When I’m ready to reconcile Quicken with the bank statement, I now go to wachovia.com and download the statement directly.

Some customers were still unaware that Wachovia would start charging for this feature. Here’s a recent comment from R. Hash:

The $5.95 just showed up on my statement with no warning whatsoever. I called Wachovia to find out what PFM was and the agent said it was Microsoft Money and Personal Finance Manager. She said the charges were from Microsoft and I have been on a wild goose chase until just now to find out who and what this was all about. This misleading info what worse than the charge itself. I have wasted over an hour trying to find out what this was. Now that I know I am really ticked. I will download on my own and get a refund from Wachovia. This is just sad all the way around.

In this case, it’s the customer’s fault for not reading the bank’s communication. But there is a catch; Wachovia is still being sneaky. Here’s an email from a frequent visitor, showing how Wachovia may be extending its pool of affected customers, followed by some instructions for having the fee removed if it should not have been assessed: Read the full article →

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