But Mom, Every Other Bank Does It!

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

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.)

Before the auto opt out took effect, a lot of banks put unreal pressure on their employees to get as many people as possible to opt IN to keep overdraft protection, often selling it as a service with great customer value. *sigh*

[Peppergirl]

This is a really good thread, but lets try to focus on the OP and his shenanigans instead of whether or not banks are evil entities that are only out for profit.

Feel free to start a thread about that on Fratching, though.

Thanks!