I am not saying we didn’t do the stupid mistake of keeping enough money in an account, but sometimes mistakes happen.

I am not passing the blame at all, but it is not just the 35 dollar fee (who charges 20, that seems cheap) is the way it is handled.

Example, you swipe the card at a coffee shop for a total of 2.50, buy a cheeseburger the same day, maybe get a pack of gum. Then, a large charge happens 2 days later, an automatic charge for a subscription that you were sure wouldn’t hit until 20 days later. Ok, so my mistake there..

But what BOA does is, they pay the large one first… correction, they put it as a pending charge (and can remain in pending for 3 days), then they hit you with the 3 “overdrafts.”

Fact of the matter is that in reality, you were not overdraft and wouldn’t have if they had paid the payments in the order that they hit your account.

But to add insult to aggravation, imagine you check your bank account every day, even several times a day and you see this is about to happen and run to the bank to make a new cash deposit to pass the hurdle.

The bank fees where not there when you checked the bank account online. You pay… cover the balance and then hell breaks loose again, they slap you with the 3 charges which AGAIN overdraft the account.

This practice cost me 420 dollars total in charges. I have the bank statements that show that the original offender charge was never paid because I had already cancelled it but I was deep into a sea of overdraft fees that in turn ended up over drafting the account.

Try to talk to a bank representative and they look at you like you are crazy. Not a shred of real care, not even empathy. Just that stupid little fake “is there anything else I can do for you.”

Listen, what is fair is fair. I made a mistake… so be it I pay. I am not rich but I can survive even after this rape. But why this predatory practice?

Banks made over 30 billion dollars on fees alone last year and still managed to screw up enough to need 25 billion dollars of tax payer money to survive. An you are telling me you can not give us a break?

Unfortunately, the world has gone so electronic crazy that is impossible to move without some form of electronic payment, people look at you funny when you pay cash these days. So these banks are an evil necessary but, if they don’t regulate themselves, someone has and this is why congress rightfully is pushing this change.

I support it 100% and I am willing to send you my statements just to show you and you can draw your own conclusions.

Example: I have a savings account that earns more interest than checking. So to get the interest that the bank is providing me as an oh so valuable service I need 2 accounts: Savings and checking. I have a system where I write a check, then I do a transfer to cover. In this one case a check got missed. I have the cash, the bank knows about it, but since the bank gave me a bunch of admin work to do that occasionally gets done wrong, I am charged $35 maybe once a year. It’s BS. I don’t spend money I don’t have, the bank makes money because I didn’t just through the hoop right.

never write checks, and always use cash

now some fees that aren’t in your control are “residual balance” transaction fees. It seems that even if you paid in full you still may get hit by them like i just did on two separate accounts. lucky for me, i emailed both of them to point out that both companies state on their bills that if the new balance is paid in full, there are no transaction fees. both reimbursed me…of course the credits will appear on the next month’s bills so I still have to pay them in order to avoid further fees.

that leads to the point, if you do get hit by a fee, you can always ask them to forgive you just that once.

Case in point:
A customer rights check and the funds can be *immediately* withdrawn. Same customer deposits check and a hold can be put on it for 10 days! Why, if a bank can immediately take money from my account can’t it immediately credit my deposits?

My gripe is that the playing field isn’t exactly level but yeah, I hate whiners too.

Is a bank really feeling $20 worth of damage by lending me $6? No. But it’s a fee. Of course, the good news about fees is that if the consumer was not the #1 cause of being wrong, a bank will usually refund the fee.

Perhaps thats what your overdraft whiners are hoping for?

CK