Associated Bank, N.A.

I had closed my accounts with this bank in July of this year (2013). Through them I had a bill pay service set up. When I'd closed my I double and triple checked with the personal banker who was helping me to be sure that I was done with them and the bill pay service and that I could move on with out worries. He gave me the green light and told me everything was fine.

Early in November I began receiving calls from a third party which Associated Bank is using to run their bill pay service asking me to pay them 111.41$ for a bill pay. I explained to this company that I had closed the account and had not been with Associated Bank for months. This company explained to me that they had tried to get a refund from the payee of this bill, but that it was a non refundable bill. For some reason or another Associated could not (or would not) pay this third party company that had payed the bill on behalf of Associated Banks bill pay service.

I think ok! I'll go talk to someone with Associated Bank. I'd received a letter from associated bank that was referring to this 111.41$ so I thought I'd take that with me and we could get everything cleared up. The personal banker I spoke with this time, said that if I'd closed my account then there was absolutely no reason that the bill pay service would have continued. What he had told me was that the letter was a notification that the bill had not been payed to the payee. So if I'd payed the bill by other means then this was not an issue and I had no worries. Cool! I pay my bills very promptly so no worries!

December 2, 2013 I receive a letter telling me that "Within the next 30 days my information will be sent to an outside collection agency that will handle the collection process for this debt".

I return to Associated Bank once more to talk with someone. I ended up talking with the personal banker who had helped me close my account. He essentially explained to me that this was my fault and that I needed to take care of it. I tried calling Associated Banks phone # for escalating a complaint to receive a "There's nothing we can do other than file complaints on the personal bankers you've dealt with. Here's the number for the third party company we do our bill pay service through, maybe they can help you". Ok, I've been jerked around for months over this issue, I can try one more phone call. After calling this third party company it was explained to me that the only option I had was to pay them the money that they had payed on my associated bank account's behalf. Even though I'd closed my account and completely walked away from that bank months ago.