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The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

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Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#81

Post by gujk »

shabble wrote: post #60
bdhe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've heard it mentioned as 'largest payment first', with the stated argument that it's most likely to be a loan or some other important payment, but has the practical effect of triggering charges on way more items. It's For Your Benefit, citizen. (Also, the cash advance interest differential for credit-cards, which is higher, and only paid off after all other charges are covered, rather than any sort of temporal orde…

The government acts For Your Benefit, citizen. Business acts For An Exciting Opportunity, Especially For You!

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#82

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#83

Post by ck2 »

STOP USING COMMERCIAL BANKS.

Sorry for the caps but it cannot be stressed enough.

There is no good reason not to use a credit union - almost everyone in the USA can find one and qualify and since they are member owned they won't do nonsense like this and don't need regulation to force them to do what is morally right.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#84

Post by Tsagadai »

kstenerud wrote: post #8
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…

Which is why you shouldn't be using such a dangerous service when living check to check. Go to a bank machine, inquire about your current balance, and then extract cash to make your purchases with. Banks may be predatory with fees, but really it's your own responsibility to avoid this trap, and it's not even that hard to do. You can also join a credit union.

What about the banks that charge a fee for checking your balance (yes, they exist) to screw over customers like this. I have a friend who got an overdraft fee for checking his account balance once.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#85

Post by john_horton »

younata wrote: post #42
fletchowns wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This practice should be illegal, just like processing withdrawals before deposits is now illegal, which was also done to maximize overdraft fees (at least I'm pretty sure it's illegal now). Our government needs to make it easier to switch to a different bank. Tons of people would leave these awful banks for credit unions and such if it was easy to do. I mean it's possible to switch banks, it's a big headache though.…

This is precisely why I have USAA as my bank. I was originally going to get a Wells Fargo account, but that changed when I decided to go to uni in Florida - before the wachovia merger happened. My father decided that not being able to keep tabs on my account was a dealbreaker, so I ended up getting a USAA account. Worked out for the best, because USAA has some of the best customer service in the industry.

Strongly second that---USAA is fantastic.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#87

Post by daemin »

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…

There has been a few situations in Australia where contractors / self employed business people have invoiced the banks for making them wait to be served in line. From memory the banks have paid those invoices, not sure that would work in the USA but if they wasted 2-3 hours of your time for which you can bill serious amounts on, then it might be worth a shot.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#88

Post by jarek »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #68

Almost every bank's overdraft fee in Canada has been pegged at $42.50 for the past 5 odd years, perhaps longer. I just paid $42.50 for mistakenly giving a $3 refund in Canadian dollars via paypal, when both my paypal and my bank were flush with US funds, the simple fact that I mixed up a currency symbol means that refund now cost me $45.50. This is one of the reasons I stand behind the bitcoin idea. Fee free banking…

Omitting the part where you asked Paypal to debit a linked account that had less than $3 in it...

http://www.ingdirect.ca/en/chequing/index.html

cheaper overdraft if you qualify, http://www.banking.pcfinancial.ca/a/products/chequingAccount...

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#89

Post by TheRevoltingX »

I use Chase, and they tried to get me with this once. I had to call and yell at them and basically asked them how it's possible that they know I don't have funds and still let the transaction go through.

I told them that their systems were faulty, and they told me this was a 'feature' of the account type.

I told them I never asked for such a feature, and expect it to work like every other bank account where it denies transactions based on funds.

They reversed one of the overdraft fees and removed the 'feature' from my account at no cost to me. Now if I don't have funds in my account and try to make a transaction, it gets denied. The way it should be, I haven't paid overdraft fees since then.

Re: The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America

#90

Post by enjo »

nknight wrote: post #76
notJim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing out on a lot of things. The bank definitely has costs that go into supporting its customers: branches and employees to staff them (most banks, not all of course), phone support people, the very computer systems you talk about, and people to keep them running and add new features to them. Most mainstream banks' free checking accounts make these things available to account holders, so I don't kno…

I haven't set foot in a bank branch in over a year, and then only to deal with a problem caused by the confluence of their antiquated model and that of another company. I've never once made a phone call to, or received one from, my current bank in the ~7 years my current checking account has been open. I don't know who you think they're maintaining such anachronisms for, but it ain't this free checking user. The comp…

Next time you walk by a bank branch, take note of how many people are inside. That would likely indicate that your something of a anomaly.
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