TCF Totally Free Checking - Change of Terms

[favre_2_free]

A little backround....

At the beginning of December, a local TCF was running a  special that gave me $100 if I signed up for a  Totally Free Checking account.  No minimum balance, no direct deposit necessary....just had to buy checks for $17.50.  Through the last 4 months, I've occasionally used this account, mainly to keep money in a spot that was harder for me to spend, as I was saving up for a vacation.  I had both my State and Federal Tax returns deposited into this account, plus a couple here and there cash deposit and withdrawls.

Now comes the fun part!

As of March, they've changed my account to a Convience Checking account with fees for not having a minimum balance of $500, or a $100 min. direct deposit a month.  Here is where the problem comes in.  If I close the account in the first 6 months, I have to give them their $100 back (which I had to claim on my 2009 taxes as interest + paid charge for checks).  If I don't carry a $500 balance, I'm going to get charged $10 a month because they changed my terms.  I'm obviously not going to switch any direct depsit money to them, because now they've ticked me off, and I'll close the account as soon as I can.

My question is, are they allowed to do this without my permission?  When I signed up, I signed up for Totally Free Checking, that they gave me $100 for, and that's exactly why I signed up.  I didn't sign up for an account with a $10 fee!

[Anonymous]

After a recent transaction, I was wondering why I had $10 less than anticipated, until I discovered the details...long story short, they just lost an account.  Kind of sad, really....I got an iPod nano back when I opened my accounts and ended up keeping them. 

You're not too far away from the end of the required time, so if you can keep $500 in there for a little while then you can take the money & run (make sure you close the account first, of course )  I signed up for Totally Free Checking too; never asked for "Convenience Checking".  Not very convenient if you ask me.  I wouldn't think they could do something like this either, but they just did, didn't they?  Bank of America did it too...not just with the account type but the entire bank; I had no accounts with Bank of America, all of the sudden I end up with 2!  They started charging fees on one, which I promptly closed.  The other is a credit card I haven't touched since they took it over. 

Anyway, guess they figure they'll make more money by charging fees, then they'll lose in departing customers.