Legal Question in Banking Law in Pennsylvania

Banks have a right of set-off against any funds you have on deposit. You do a lot of whining about this but do not put forth any relevant details. It would be really important to know why the bank grabbed the money in your bank account. They did not wake up one morning and take funds out because they felt like it. They took the money because you either bounced checks or otherwise owed them or else you had a judgment against you and your bank accounts were garnished.

Which gets back to you - it is YOUR responsibility to know how much money is in your bank account at any time. You need to take steps to insure that you do not overdraw your account or else get overdraft protection. And if your bank account was garnished, then this is your responsibility too because you would have known (in most cases) that a judgment was entered and you took no steps to protect yourself.

And banks don't care about your personal financial hardships. If the bank is owed money or served with a garnishment, they can take the funds.

I don't understand the rest of the post about adding a wife and so on. If you value having this bank account, then I would talk to the branch manager about having them honor the checks that are outstanding and see if you and the bank can work out some kind of reasonable payment plan so that the bank will honor your checks or give you some money back and you will make payments on the money owed.

If the bank will not budge and your checks bounce, then try to work things out with the merchants with whom you dealt. Go and bank somewhere else (do it quick because if you owe any money to the bank they will list you in Chex Systems and you will not be able to open an account anywhere). Then repay the first bank whenever you do have the funds. And stop any direct deposits going into that account as the bank may grab those too. And stop any auto-drafts from coming out so no more overdrafts will occur.