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#1122561 - 02/04/09 03:35 PM TISA Fees
Cale_N_Oats Offline
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Cale_N_Oats
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Southern Illinois
Our auditors recently wrote us up for not having consistent terminology for fees listed on the account opening documents and the account statements. Our account opening documents list a fee for an account as a "maintenance fee", but on the statement it is listed as a "service charge". Is this information truely inconsistent? If so does anyone know where i can find this rule within Reg DD?
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#1122572 - 02/04/09 03:41 PM Re: TISA Fees Cale_N_Oats
BrendaC Offline
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Commentary Section 230.3 General disclosure requirements

(a) Form

2. Consistent terminology. Institutions must use consistent terminology to describe terms or features required to be disclosed. For example, if an institution describes a monthly fee (regardless of account activity) as a “monthly service fee” in account-opening disclosures, the periodic statement and change-in-term notices must use the same terminology so that consumers can readily identify the fee.
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#1122667 - 02/04/09 04:38 PM Re: TISA Fees BrendaC
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Southern Illinois
Ok thanks. Also, what if you can't fit all the wording onto your statement. Lets say the account opening documents list a "service charge for excess withdrawals" but the specs on your system only allow you to input "service charge" what should i do then?
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#1122721 - 02/04/09 05:32 PM Re: TISA Fees Cale_N_Oats
BrendaC Offline
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You will have to rename fee to be consistent with your system limitations. Some systems I have seen have the ability to break down a service to document specific fees within the total service charge (such as a maintenance fee or per item fee). You might want to research your system to see if that is possible.
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#1122726 - 02/04/09 05:34 PM Re: TISA Fees BrendaC
BrendaC Offline
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And remember, to avoid consumer confusion the consistency applies to advertising as well...website, brochures, EVERYTHING.
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#1122775 - 02/04/09 05:55 PM Re: TISA Fees BrendaC
Cale_N_Oats Offline
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ok thanks Brenda
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#1589007 - 08/08/11 05:24 PM Re: TISA Fees Cale_N_Oats
travelgirl Offline
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Minnesota
We implemented a minimum balance fee on some of our accounts as of March 1st. We provided the 30 day notice to existing clients and changed our account opening TISA's. I'm finally circling back to ensure that the verbiage being used when the fee actually posts is the same as what was previously disclosed.

In two instances the system says "Service charge" but the fee has been disclosed in all places as "minimum balance fee" I don't know why it ended up this way (still researching with operations) and I know I need to fix it asap, my question is this - am I required to go back and reimburse consumers who were charged a minimum balance fee when it said "service charge" on their statement? It's only been a few months, clearly an oversight on our part, TISA does not say anything about reimbursements, willful violation, etc (like Reg Z does). I'm not trying to cover anything up, I don't believe this has been a detriment to any customer, refunding fees in this tight economy is difficult, but I also want to do the right thing. any insight?

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#1589031 - 08/08/11 05:50 PM Re: TISA Fees travelgirl
John Burnett Offline
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Not in my opinion. There are no civil penalties for TISA noncompliance, and you won't have a contract breach. Get the verbiage in sync, try to figure out why it went awry in the first place, document what you've done and move on. It's possible that a vendor software update wrote over changes that you had put into place.
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#1589099 - 08/08/11 07:06 PM Re: TISA Fees John Burnett
travelgirl Offline
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thanks John! I appreciate your feedback. I am in agreement too but with all that's going on these days I've been second guessing myself alot.

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