I know this question has been asked a dozen different times, in a dozen different ways. I'm at my wits end, though, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'll try to make my back story as short as possible. I owe back child support. A great deal of child support to be honest. I'm not going to try and make excuses about why I'm not at fault, the money needs to be paid. I've been paying it off through garnishment of my wages for a couple of years now. It is putting a bind on paying my bills, but it is just a matter of years (hopefully) to get it paid off.

This past weekend, I went to get a coffee and my debit card was declined. I paid cash for the drink, but was a little confused. When I got home, I checked my account. While there was enough balance to cover the coffee, I did notice that there was a charge for "Legal Fees" in the amount of $100. I immediately went to the branch to contest the charge, and was informed (over the phone, because no one in the branch would tell me what was going on) that my account had been levied.

I don't really know what this means, but the $100 charge means I can't pay rent. The fact that my card was declined leads me to believe that my account is frozen. Do I have any recourse here, or is the money in my account just gone? I'm already planning on closing the account and dealing in cash from now on (Randomly losing $100 without being informed makes me very wary about giving a bank my money), but I need to know if there is any way to recover the money that was already there in enough time to pay rent tomorrow.

Please help. Thank you.

You will probably not be able to recover the money, but you should get a detailed answer from the bank as to why they levied the money without properly informing you.

Thanks for the reply. I already closed the account, and am only dealing in cash from now on. Everyone at the bank redirected me to someone else. The only answer anyone would give me was "It is a levy from child support recovery", which would have been fine if that was the question I was asking. BoA basically walked away with $300 of my money. I wouldn't have been quite as pissed if CRS took it.

The last person I talked to (On the phone because no one at the branch would give me any information) told me that they sent a letter the day that they took out the money, which I have still never received.

My lesson from this is never trust someone else with my money. I'm dealing strictly in cash now. If anyone is going to steal my money, they are going to have to get through me to do it :D

Thanks again.

[edit] - $300 includes overdrafts from how they timed the "legal fees" as well as a "convenience fee" for closing my account. Never bank with BoA.

If the debit was the result of a levy against your account, the bank has to provide you with a copy of the court order used to attach the account. With that court order you can seek to vacate the garnishment.

Whether you have grounds to or not is not clear from the info you provided.