Comments on: New Law on Bank Overdraft Fees & The “Courtesy” Overdraft Protection

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:12:06 +0000

Dont let the banks full you they can reverse the overdraft charges. It is up the the bank branch discresion. I know I have had them reversed a number of times. They are just trying to make money off of people. I think if people have an overdraft problem, Huntington is sounding real good right now.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:23:24 +0000

I am having an issue. I had put a hold on my Netflix account for the past 2 months and was to go for another 2 months. This morning, I check my bank account and Netflix took money out of my account for a monthly subscription! I called them and I asked why on earth would they take money out while my account was on hold and the lady said, “well, that shouldn’t have done, let me reverse your debit.” Then I asked, “well what about the overdraft I now have in my account because a bill that I had paid by Electronic check had went through about 20 minutes later. The bank WILL not reverse the fee and Netflix made it clear that they will not pay for it either. I believe Netflix was in the wrong and should pay it, but what is a person to do when they hardly have any money and can pay just small bills here and there. It is so frustrating!! Okay, vent over.

By: Laurel

Laurel — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:02:54 +0000

I found out the hard way today that my bank is not allowing the opt-out on overdraft protection if you have a business checking account. I looked at the rules on this and there is nothing there about a difference between personal and business checking accounts. So, for anyone out there who thinks they are opted out of this so called “protection”, and you have a business account, check it out to make sure you really do have this.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:24:34 +0000

I’ve been told there’s a new law in effect that says banks are to run lower charges through before the larger ones. My bank has a bad habit running the larger charges through first which automatically makes my acct short, therefore causing all the others to be NSF’s as well, which cost me $32 per transaction. While I no longer have the OD protection, I was in a situation recently where my acct was put on hold until my direct deposit made it to the bank. I’d thought my Social Security check came on a certain date, only to find that it would be a week later.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:18:24 +0000

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that any ‘damages’ would be awarded because if this is their policy, you knowingly or otherwise signed something stating that you were ok with it… read the fine print, etc… In many cases, they can just send you an electronic notification that your terms are changing, and after x amount of days, the change becomes enforceable. More likely, they have always had this ‘policy’. In contract law, their are only a few easy outs. If your bank breaches the contract (unlikely because they own a few dozen lawers)… i.e. charges you for something that is not in your ‘agreement’, or does something that is legally unenforceable…. i.e. breaks the law, you could get your money back legally. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. Usually, in cases like this, your best and perhaps only options are to 1) Explain the problem to someone at the bank (tier 2 or higher) that has the authority to back out the fees, explain to them in detail why this happened and how you are using this experience to determine if you will remain their customer. IF they value you as a customer, they will do the right thing. Or 2) threaten to take your business elsewhere… and if they don’t do the right thing, you should. Legal advise is very tricky and expensive, and certainly not bullet proof. We would need to know if this ‘policy’ of theirs is in writing and binding… (enforceable) and if it is, there is unlikely to be any recourse from your side. It’s good that Amazon returned the money as this proves that there was an error involved, not your fault. You might also pursue this with Amazon first as their error is what resulted in this problem and they wouldn’t have returned your money if that wasn’t the case.. or at least it would appear that way based on your post. However, your bank, contractually, is under no obligation to back out the fees. It’s no different if a customer hands me a bad check, and I try to cash it. The bank will hit me, AND the person that wrote the check and this is legal. The bank wins, you and Amazon lose. Pehaps if you make a good case with amazon customer service, the issue can be settled between amazon and the bank directly. As with most things impacting both the consumer, and business world. If you are getting screwed, put your account somewhere else. Letting the community know which bank it is that is doing this to you, may help a lot of us steer away from doing business with them. Good luck. Also, if it was me, I’d take the ‘time is of the essence’ approach and if your bank won’t do you right by close of business today or tomorrow, make today the last day they can call you a customer. The size of your business will dictate how much they really care about you and unfortunately, because this is a business account, and you couldn’t cover 40 dollars, they probably are not going to view you as a customer they need to fight for. None the less, if you feel you are being taken advantage of, and it sounds like you are, stop the bleeding now, close the account and move it. If your business can’t cover 40 bucks, or even 4000 bucks, you are likely not going to get any real respect from a major financial institution, even when due.

Respectfully,
Mark

By: Rashida Johnson

Rashida Johnson — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:58:57 +0000

I recently had a charge to my business account from Amazon that was an error. My bank (TFC) has a policy of charging $25.00 PER DAY if your account is overdrafted AND because I have a small business account they will not allow me to opt out of their overdraft “protection” By the time I found out about the charge, contacted Amazon and they returned the money- I still had to pay $125.00 in overdraft fees. The transaction by Amazon was on $39.99. This seems to be illegal or at least unethical. Does anyone have a legal background and can tell me- if I can seek legal damages to get them to return the fees?

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 21:25:11 +0000

Unless you actually overdraw your account, I don’t get how they can charge you. The only benefit (and a good one) from this law for me has been knowing that if I don’t have the cash, they will decline the card. I don’t think most banks charge for a declined purchase, only an actual overdrawn account which thanks also to this law, they now need your consent to do that. At wellsfargo, it’s pretty funny… they have a link on the main page of their online banking site that says – Prevent your debit card from being declined!… clicking on that link takes you to a screen where the consumer can once again give them the option to overdraw you for 40 bucks a pop, or whatever it is now. They are recouping their fees by eliminating free checking, etc at most places.

By: Johnny

Johnny — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 04:14:17 +0000

I always knew the government was retarded, but when they passed this bill I knew the banks were going to get their lost overdraft fees somehow. We’ll I found out today, they renamed it to returned fees. Same cost, exact same way to get it.

I wish some technology would come out so we can get rid of the thievery banks.

By: Randy

Randy — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:14:35 +0000

Ken, just read your account of the problems. Wow. Those are big charges. You can (probably should) fire KeyBank as your bank of choice and go with someone else – maybe a small town bank or credit union. Take a list of questions with you – what happens in a case like this. Take a look at your statements and understand your banking needs. Find a bank that meets them.

You have the ultimate choice.

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 22 May 2011 06:42:19 +0000

I know I shouldn’t spend money I don’t have. However I recently had an emergency that required me to overdraft my account with Keybank. At the time I thought it would be a good idea to enable basic overdraft protection to pay for what I needed. After over-drafting my account I paid most of it back from selling a couple things. What I did not expect is my PC to fail before I could disable overdraft protection on my account. Two charges came through while my PC was down that I would have not authorized, in fact one was from an echeck using Paypal I could not cancel. The echeck was returned twice hitting me with a $39 fee each time. I was also hit with $39 for the initial overdraft. I was also hit with $39 for another charge, I was whammied three times for $39 and two of the transactions I did not authorize as there was no way since my PC was down, I never approved of reoccurring charges to my account. I’ve also been hit with two or three re-occurring overdraft charges, $28 for every five days my account is negative. I now owe over $200 in fees because of this crap.

There really needs to be tighter regulations to protect the consumer. I don’t use checks, however I linked my bank account with Paypal. I want the option to be able to completely disable overdraft protection, not just debit or atm transactions. I want to disable overdraft protection with my checking account number for transactions through Paypal or Autopay services and charges to be denies outright if I do not have sufficient funds.

Another thing, if we overdraft our account, just charge us the one fee for each transaction and not a re-occurring fee for every X days our account remains negative. If no goods exchange hands we should not be charged a returned check fee.

After over-drafting my account I was also sent a threatening letter by Keybank three days later threatening to restrict/close my account after thirty days. The letter stated that I should not use, withdraw or deposit money from/in my account and that I should seek another financial institution for my future banking needs despite depositing about $150 into my account after over-drafting.

I’m going to try disputing the charges, if they refuse I will make a big stink. They better not close my account because I’ll fight it, they shouldn’t of paid if to begin with if I wasn’t allowed to over-draft and now they are threatening to close my account?