Paid off a US Bank credit card, but they sent two withdrawals - bank account overdrawn

Question

I paid off a US Bank credit card on Friday (~$5000) and today in the morning I woke up to an empty bank account because they made two withdrawals, both for the same exact amount.

I talked to US Bank and they said the best thing to do is to call my bank (Chase) and tell them to stop the payment. I did that, but I'm still not seeing my money back.

I understand these things can take time, but I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can do in the mean time to make sure this won't turn into more of a problem than it already is?

Does stopping an ACH transfer initiated on a Friday afternoon on Monday morning usually work or should I prepare myself for disappointment?

Thanks!

Update: Just in case anyone is finding this in the future. It only took overnight and we have the money back in our account. Still have to deal with US Bank now, but this is progress!

Answer 1

Depends on how your automatic draft was set up, to troubleshoot the issue first. A less-obvious issue is you can base your draft on a dollar amount or on the statement balance, among other things. Just because you paid the balance doesn't mean the statement balance was necessarily updated, and if you set up a draft on a dollar amount, then that's that.

Cancel your automatic draft. Then: (1) Your credit card is going to have a surplus balance, which you can have transferred back to your checking once it has gone through (ensure they can do the transfer without a fee, and if not look at greater of a flat fee or 3-5%). Or (2) the bank will stop the payment, and after a number of days it will clear back into your account. Then, you need to work with your bank, and see if they can forgive the overdraft fees.

In the interim, that money is stuck in bank/merchant limbo, and you just need to wait until the transfer applies to the receiving account. Just figuring out what happened and getting the fees smoothed over will probably keep this from snowballing any further, just be prompt so these people don't charge any more fees.