But Mom, Every Other Bank Does It!

[PepperElf]

SC: You're really going to lose an account over these fees?!?!

of course. you're a bank. not a charity.

[EricKei]

I think I should lay off the sarcasm jar for a while. *sigh*

Nah, we are big fans of Sarcasm ® here. We even offer free fill-ups!

unless you have overdraft protection, yes they do, sorry, sparky, you lose...on more than one level.

Sadly, while the banks here offer OD protection via a line of credit, using it costs just as much as a REAL overdraft ($29/hit, plus something like an additional $5/day if you don't brig the account back into the black within a week) >_<

My OLD bank -- which has since been bought out (and those people were themselves bought out) did offer ODP credit for like $10/mo with no extra fees, as long as you repaid it before the end of the banking cycle.

[Midorikawa]

overdraft fees that not been that low for many a year.

your credit score may not be dinged but you DO get put into a nationa database of "check bouncers/overdrafters" (Cheksystems I believe) and your name and SS stays there for at least 7 years. if your bank chooses they CAN close your account if they see a pattern they do not like.

I overdraft so seldom I don't remember what I was charged last I overdrafted. :-P

And yes, excessive overdrafters do get put into a database, but the entire reason for having overdraft protection is to allow for those financial tight spots, and everyone will have them. My credit is flawless, I've never had an account closed, or been put in cheksystems. The occasional overdraft is just fine. You pay the penalty, and move on. :-)

[Jay 2K Winger]

Nah, we are big fans of Sarcasm ® here. We even offer free fill-ups!

Sarcasm ® is just one of the many fine services we here at CS.com offer.

[Andara Bledin]

BofA restructured how their overdrafting works sometime not too long ago. Now, you can go over up to $9.99 and it won't count as an overdraft at all. I forget the rest of the changes, but they're harsher for the rare overdrafter (a single fee, rather than graduating), they're a lot less onerous for someone who gets into a domino effect situation.

Of course, everybody can opt out of allowing for overdrafts in the first place. But you have to ask for that, since the default is to allow for overdrafts so the bank can collect on the associated fees.

^-.-^

[blas]

I've only over-drafted once. I don't even know if I actually have over-draft protection, what happened was my rent check was taken out a day before it should have been, but at midnight, the funds were deposited and the bank took what I had gone over with right out, and nothing else ever came of it. So all I lost was the thirtysome dollars I had shorted the bank.

[Versalia]

Fratch fratch fratch, fratch fratch fratch
Fratchety fratch fratch fratch
That's how we fratch the day away
In the merry old land of CS


(edit: I am releasing my urge to fratch, not accusing anyone of fratching XD)

[PatchO'Black]

Fratch fratch fratch, fratch fratch fratch
Fratchety fratch fratch fratch
That's how we fratch the day away
In the merry old land of CS


(edit: I am releasing my urge to fratch, not accusing anyone of fratching XD)

o/` Oh, the SCs think we should work before our shifts begun!
We don't need lunch and should stay after the workday's done!
What a bunch of scum! o/`

[EricKei]

I was under the impression that, as of last summer, even if you already had ODP, you had to explicitly opt-in to it nowadays...?

[Shalom]

I was under the impression that, as of last summer, even if you already had ODP, you had to explicitly opt-in to it nowadays...?

Well yeah, but the way they spin it, you'd think that it's the greatest thing since sliced pita. When JPMC put this in place, they were telling me I should sign up for this wonderful service, because it would let me pay for more stuff on my debit card than I had money in the bank to pay for, and it would still go through! Isn't that great? Of course it will cost you $36 per occurrence, up to a maximum of 3 per day.

I asked them what would happen if I didn't opt in for it? They said, "Well in that case, if you try to make a purchase and you don't have the funds to cover it, the transaction will be declined!"

I told them that imprimis, if there's no money in the account, I want the damn transactions to bounce, rather than silently letting them go through to the tune of $108 per day; secundus, I didn't even have a debit card. In fact I went to great lengths to ensure that I didn't have a debit card; my ATM card has no Visa/MC logo on it, and should not be usable anywhere but an ATM; and tertius, I thought that the way they were presenting it was extremely misleading.

They said, "OK, sign here." That was the end of that.

(My checking account has ODP, but of a different type: if it goes overdrawn, which it tends to do around the sixth of the month when my mortgage payment is extracted, it just transfers the money from my savings account, assuming there's money in there to start with.)

[MoonCat]

My bank charges $35 per overdraft. And of course, by the time you find out it happened, they've already dinged the account for at least one or two more. I signed up for the automatic decline if there isn't enough money in the account, but I also watch what I'm spending very closely.

I just can't imagine how that guy could do that 15 times in two months! Does he not understand how this works? Oh wait...of course not.

[giggles]

That, and if people are writing checks there's really no way for the bank to know that they're overdrawing their account in time to stop them. With debits, the information is sent to the bank fairly quickly, so stores (at least my store) can decline debit purchases if there isn't money in the account to cover it. Check info doesn't go to the bank until the check does, which is usually a few days later.

at my store checks go thru just like debits now and the receipt that prints warns customers of this. walmart also does this and they return your check to you as well since it is no longer of any use to them.

[Teefies2]

I can see hitting a rough spot and overdrafting a bit. I do it too. I overdraft on average once a year, tops, and usually when everything breaks at once. It's nice to not have my credit score dinged because I had a medical emergency pop up, or the water heater died forcing us to buy a new one quickly, or any of other myriad things, and just pay a $5 fee.

Wait???? Your bank only charges you $5 for an overdraft???? I want THAT bank! Mine is currently charging $40 .... even when I overdrafted $2.57 (which was my error, I admit)

[Andara Bledin]

Wait???? Your bank only charges you $5 for an overdraft???? I want THAT bank! Mine is currently charging $40 .... even when I overdrafted $2.57 (which was my error, I admit)

With my savings account setup, it'll cost me $5 if they have to pull from it to cover an overdraft. If I didn't have the savings account, it'd be a $35 overdraft fee.

Thankfully, if I overdraft and it's less than $10, the bank will ignore it as long as I don't go over that $10 limit, which I think is brilliant.

^-.-^

[Chromatix]

I went through being on the wrong end of these charges a few years ago, just before I moved to Finland. I carefuly analysed them at the time, which is why I am so sure that they are out for profit and not their customers' interests.

I noticed that they were very careful to always allow the first transaction that crossed the balance line, but disallow any that followed it. This allowed them to charge a "referral fee" for specially allowing the transaction, then an "unauthorised overdraft fee" because it ended up in the red, and then interest at a ruinous rate on the debit balance. The subsequent transactions instead attracted a rejection fee each, which in my case specifically, always exceeded the value of the transaction!

As for their ability to bounce a cheque, there's been a standard 3-day clearance time for quite a few decades. During that time they've introduced new technology, ostensibly to speed up the process and make it more efficient. Yet it took them about a month to tell the intended recipients about the cheques that bounced on my account.

There were about 3.5 weeks when these recipients believed they had the money - which I know because I called them when I suspected the cheques might have bounced. And yes, the bank charged heavily for each of those bounced cheques.

BTW, I challenged the bank about these charges, going as far as to file with the small-claims court, and they backed down and refunded the lot (including subsequent interest and the court filing fees). That was still several months where I had to live in the "cash economy" in order to still have money for food.