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Email templates · Bank and credit union

Email template to ask a bank to reverse a fee

A fee showed up on your statement: an overdraft fee (charged when a payment goes through even though your balance was short), a monthly maintenance fee you thought was waived, a wire fee, an out-of-network ATM fee. Banks and credit unions refund fees like these all the time for customers in decent standing, but almost never unless you ask. Putting the request in writing, whether by email or through the secure message box in your online banking, works better than a phone call: the person reading it can look at your account while they read, there is a record of the date you asked, and you are not stuck on hold. Keep it short and factual. You are asking a favor, and the facts do most of the work.

Before you send

  • The exact fee: the date, the amount, and the label exactly as it appears on your statement.
  • What caused it, in one sentence. "My paycheck posted a day after a scheduled payment" is the kind of thing that gets a fee reversed.
  • How long you have been a customer and whether you have asked for a fee refund before. First-time asks are almost always granted.
  • The last four digits of the account number. Never put your full account number, your login, or a password in an email.
  • One thing you have changed so it will not happen again, such as a low-balance alert. It gives the bank a reason to say yes.
Subject Request to reverse [fee name] on account ending [last four digits] 
Hi [bank name] team,

On [date], a [fee name, as it appears on my statement] of $[amount] was charged to my [checking / savings] account ending in [last four digits].

[One sentence on what happened, for example that a deposit posted the day after a scheduled payment went through, so the account was short for less than a day.] I've been a customer since [year] and, as far as I know, this is the first fee of this kind on my account.

Could you reverse this fee as a one-time courtesy? I've since [moved the money / set up a balance alert / changed the payment date] so it doesn't happen again.

If you need to confirm anything by phone, the best number is [your phone number] and I'm available [days and times]. I'd appreciate a reply within a few business days.

Thanks,
[Your name]

Everything in brackets is yours to fill in. Keep the rest as it is or change the tone to match how you write.

After you send

  • Most banks refund a first fee outright, often within a day. If several fees came from one shortfall, ask for all of them together, since one event caused the chain.
  • If the answer is no, ask what the bank's fee-refund policy actually is and whether a supervisor can review the request. Ask once, politely; a second no is usually final.
  • Reply to any request for your full account number or password with a phone call to the number on your card, never in email.
  • If overdraft fees keep happening, the fix is a different account. Many banks and credit unions now offer checking with no overdraft fees at all.

Or don't send it yourself

Forward the job to myagent@standinfor.me and let StandIn run the whole thread.

StandIn is an email assistant that handles conversations with businesses for you. You write it one email saying what you need. It writes to the business, waits for the answer, follows up when they go quiet, pushes back on the number when it should, and brings the results back to your inbox for you to decide. You don't need to install an app or sign up. The first email you send is already the start of the task.

Hand this to StandIn opens an email to myagent@standinfor.me with the job already written out

To myagent@standinfor.me Subject Get a bank fee reversed 
Hi StandIn,

Please ask my bank to reverse a fee and handle the follow-up.

Bank: [bank or credit union name].
Account: [checking or savings, last four digits only].
The fee: [name as shown on the statement, date, amount].
What happened: [one or two sentences].
How long I've been a customer: [year I opened the account].

Write to them, make the case for a one-time courtesy reversal, and if they decline, ask for a supervisor to review it. Let me know the outcome and anything they need from me directly. Do not share my full account number, login or any passwords.

Thanks,
[Your name]

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