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The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

banksimple.com

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Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#31

Post by jeffool »

impendia wrote: post #9
jeffool wrote: post #2

I had an annoying run in with them. It happened because I didn't know Suntrust didn't take out charges in the order they occurred. They take out the largest charge first, and each charge as they decrease in value. One day I had had a few small charges, and realizing it was a week intl payday, I figured I'd run to the grocery store and make a large precise of groceries, to ensure I had food taken care of, expecting to…

Please tell me that you called them, or walked into the nearest branch, and demanded that they reverse all but one of the charges, and, either (1) They agreed, or (2) You promptly closed your account.

After a long while of phone conversation, they told me "no". I went into the branch and talked to someone there. They also told me "no". Then their spouse walked in; I'd known their spouse for years it turned out! They wiped the fees out for me. That actually pissed me off a little more... But I certainly wasn't going to tell them that.

I've not overdrafted since.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#32

Post by dminor »

jeffool wrote: post #2

I had an annoying run in with them. It happened because I didn't know Suntrust didn't take out charges in the order they occurred. They take out the largest charge first, and each charge as they decrease in value. One day I had had a few small charges, and realizing it was a week intl payday, I figured I'd run to the grocery store and make a large precise of groceries, to ensure I had food taken care of, expecting to…

Another trick: some banks count the purchase _authorization_ against your funds, rather than the _capture_, when you buy online. But the merchant may reject your order if the address verification failed. If you mistype your address multiple times, you've got multiple holds on your money. Even if the merchant voids the authorization, they conveniently don't process the voids immediately.

So you can end up with overdraft fees despite having enough money in your account!

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#34

Post by jeffool »

jc4p wrote: post #15
impendia wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me that you called them, or walked into the nearest branch, and demanded that they reverse all but one of the charges, and, either (1) They agreed, or (2) You promptly closed your account.

I had a similar situation happen at Bank of America except in my situation I wasn't relying on a single overdraft, I wasn't expecting any. They put in a transfer from my savings to my checking a day after they said it would go through and did the exact same sorting of large purchases to charge my multiple fees. It took me two and a half hours to get the charges reversed, 30 minutes of which were spent in the nearest…

heh, my phone conversations ended much the same. They told me to go to the branch where I opened my account as well. A state away. (As I mentioned elsewhere, I got them wiped off eventually.)

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#35

Post by [deleted] »

kstenerud wrote: post #28
mkr-hn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted because it looks like you're blaming the victims. Everyone would seek out good information for making decisions in a perfect world. But we don't live in that world. Sometimes it's necessary to protect people from the worst tendencies of corporations.

The fact that banks collected 38 BILLION from customers in overdraft fees would seem to suggest that people AREN'T choosing to change their habits, even on such a simple thing as this. Yes, by all means, make the banks stop gouging people like that (especially maximizing fee collection by ordering largest-to-smallest). But really, once you've suffered overdraft fees once, there's no excuse for suffering it again and…

[deleted]

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#37

Post by MichaelApproved »

I hate this. I hate the way banks try to think up underhanded ways of screwing their customers (like cashing checks in largest to lowest so they can bounce as many as possible).

Having said that, the old "Store your money here so we can lend it to others" business model is not as profitable as it used to be.

Edit: Removed reference to interest rates.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#38

Post by jeffool »

kstenerud wrote: post #29
jeffool wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why people are downvoting you... I get what you're saying and don't completely disagree. But I think it's worth noting, because I'm not sure if I got the point across: I was intending to overdraft on the final, large fee. The insane overdraft fees only affected me in an unexpected way because they go out of their was to also screw people on the order of withdrawals.

Yes, that's definitely evil. Mind you, you're not falling victim to that ploy again and again. Millions of others are.

Very true. Some aren't inquisitive enough to find out why/how they're being screwed.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#39

Post by backprojection »

bdhe wrote: post #6
jeffool wrote: post #2

I had an annoying run in with them. It happened because I didn't know Suntrust didn't take out charges in the order they occurred. They take out the largest charge first, and each charge as they decrease in value. One day I had had a few small charges, and realizing it was a week intl payday, I figured I'd run to the grocery store and make a large precise of groceries, to ensure I had food taken care of, expecting to…

It's a very easy trap to fall into if you're living check to check and make even the slightest mistake. In each such story online, I've heard a claim that they specifically have algorithms to maximize the penalty fees on these mistakes. Its another instance of a practice that disproportionately affects the poor. Unless you're living paycheque to paycheque, you would never even bother looking into such niggling detail…

What bothers me the most is that there are engineers who will use their creative skills in such a way.

Their precious human capital could be used to create further knowledge and advance progress, instead it's used to exploit.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#40

Post by gscott »

jeffool wrote: post #2

I had an annoying run in with them. It happened because I didn't know Suntrust didn't take out charges in the order they occurred. They take out the largest charge first, and each charge as they decrease in value. One day I had had a few small charges, and realizing it was a week intl payday, I figured I'd run to the grocery store and make a large precise of groceries, to ensure I had food taken care of, expecting to…

I found out the hard way that Citibank when they put a hold on funds processed by credit/debit until they clear (say I bought a candy bar for $1.50) they do not pay out of those funds. They release the funds back into the account, where if I was 1 cent short they would charge an overdraft even though the day before they were holding those funds which I thought innocently would go to pay for the candy bar. The good news now even though they send me overdraft notices they stopped charging the overdraft fees for at least this type of transaction.
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