I Hate My Bank- Revised

One of my friend's sent me a check for $2,500 to become a partner in my Ameritrade account, so I deposited the money in my account on October 3rd. Knowing that it was a large check, I asked lady behind the counter how long it would take to clear so that I could access the money to deposit it in my Ameritrade account. She informed me that it would post by the next day. I wasn't sure about this, but I checked my account online the next day and my online statement showed that I had slightly over $4,000 available. Seeing this, I deposited the money into my Ameritrade account. However, a few days later I recieved the inevitable "unavailable funds penalty". Immediately pissed off, I sent this email.

I see that I was penalized $32.00 on October 7th for an unavailable funds penalty. I can only imagine that this is related to my deposit in my Ameritrade account (that being the only large withdrawal). However, I did NOT deposit the money in the ameritrade account until the $2500 dollar check showed up in my online balance. If the money was not available than it should not have been included in my balance. I would like that $32.00 replaced in my account as soon as possible.

This is what I received.

Thank you for contacting SunTrust regarding the transaction for $32.00 on October 7, 2005 to your account ending in XXXX.

This transaction is an Unavailable Funds (UAF) penalty. As soon as your check card is used, the purchase is placed on hold, or in a pending status. The transaction is immediately deducted from your Available Balance. When items are set to post, they post against your Available Balance. If items post against non-sufficient, unavailable or uncollected funds, a per-item penalty of $32.00 may be assessed to your account and the checks may be paid or returned unpaid.

There were not enough funds available for the $2,552.00 item. The item was paid and your account was assessed the UAF penalty per item.

If you have any additional questions or comments, please feel free to contact us again. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and look forward to satisfying your financial needs.

Wow, thanks for not helping me or answering my question at all. I'm going into the bank tomorrow and it is quite possible that I will close this account if I can't get my $32 back. Not because $32 is a big deal, because I hate when banks do this shit.

*Update*

Before I went into the bank this morning I reread this post a couple of times along with some stories from realultimatepower to make sure I was sufficiently pumped up enough to demand my money back. As I stormed into the bank two things immediately happened, both not in my favor. First, I saw a midget trying to make a deposit and that made me happy because A) it's a midget and B) he was wearing a cowboy hat, and second- out of the four customer service people I happened to get ushered into the office of the really, really hot one. It's been a couple of hours, but I definately remember her looking something like this-

-except she wasn't wearing the HALO index for a necklace.

So basically instead of me tearing someone's face off, the conversation went like this.

Her (referred to as Famke the rest of this post): "Can I help you out with something?" *smile*
Me: "Uh... yeah.. um... I have this charge on my account, and I don't think it's right...."
Famke: "Let me take a look."

After that everything gets a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure before I left I apologized for taking up her time, admitted that it was my error in some way, and offered her the use of my organs if she ever happened to be in a bad car accident. I think she liked me because she gave me my $32.00 back. I rock.