Comments on: Let’s opt out of “overdraft protection”

By: Winnie

Winnie — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 07:28:14 +0000

I don’t understand why they didn’t end the overdraft protection for online services too? I had an overdraft onlinewhich I was unaware of, but they waited nearly a week to notify me, and during the time they charged me two overdrawn fees of $35! Then, they cancelled my first overdraft fee since it’s my first offence but not the second one. Keeping in mind the kind of reputation that Bank of America has, I’m starting to think that they notified me late so that they can charge me a second time. Now they’re playing we’re the good guy and we forgave you for your first offence, and I look like I’m fully responsible for it. Had I known earlier I would’ve taken care of it earlier. I requested a refund on the day I got the letter of overdraft from them. Even so, they’re still charging me an extra 35. These banks play tricks on you so that they can get more money. They never even told me about overdraft when I opened the account. They just want you to put your money in and leave you to the problem when they occur. They never tell you in advance. Now there’s nothing I can do. Even $35 is a rip off

By: ron

ron — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:50:49 +0000

there are computer scripts that search the web, for the programed word combination and then post a response, in other words, dan G bill A and the other program…

Banks are acting in bad faith (proven in court several times)
Its very difficult to find the correct legal information now regarding the actual Legal limit that banks can charge (10-15$) I cant remember exactly.

I clearly remember college students suing their banks over the absurd overdraft fee’s and getting money back that was charged over the legal limit over time.

Watch this post get Flamed by these java bots over time…

By: Bill A

Bill A — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:03:36 +0000

Go with a regional bank or credit union thats local to you. get your $$ out of those greddy to-big-to-fail banks. I have my $$ and dont get in one and dont get overdraft fees, and the NSF is $15

By: Bank Safe

Bank Safe — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:24:46 +0000

I called BofA prior to 2/22 and asked to stop overdraft protection. They said fine, but would still charge $35 for a declined POS as well as not letting the charge go through. What good is that?

By: Dan G.

Dan G. — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:04:04 +0000

I am sorry to those of you who seem to be taking up for the banks on this issue, but I know first hand how much of a problem this is for so many people. It is not always as simple as “keeping up with your spending” as banks design their automated systems to promote the occurrence of overdrafts. I called BoA over a year ago to opt out of my Overdraft Protection (at the time I was unaware that it would deny overdrawn purchases at Point-of-Sale, which would have been fantastic) and they said they would cancel it. Now I find out that it was never canceled, if so I would have been declined at POS and not allowed to overdraw. Also, I called them twice about their policy of re-ordering transactions from highest-to-lowest. The first time I called I was told that it was the result of “a customer survey” showing that customers preferred this method. The second time I called I told them that I would be changing banks because of this policy, and I was told that changing banks would not help because high-to-low re-ordering was federally mandated banking regulation and they were required to do it that way (which was simply a lie to keep me with their bank). Now, very recently, they converted my savings account (which is also attached to my Debit Card) into a checking account so when I go to the ATM to deposit cash/checks I can’t tell which account I’m depositing into making it difficult to bring a negative account into the positive. The list goes on and on of situations where BoA has manipulated accounts to make them confusing and hard to manage. I know they are just like any other business with the goal to make money, but when you can’t trust your bank to handle your money, who CAN you trust?

By: dan

dan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:22:15 +0000

NSF fees only apply to bounced checks and similar. Going into a store and having your card denied does not generate an NSF. Having the transaction go through (if there was NSF) would generate a fee.

Consider the following (real) case:

There is 100$ in the account. 5 transactions go into “pending” state. 4 of these transaction are less than 10$. 1 is a 200$ check that was cashed early. Because they all occurred on the same day the bank is free to order them in any fashion that they like. They have the 200$ check go through first and then hit you with 5 overlimit fees (35$*5=175$). If they had denied the check you would have gotten one NSF fee. If they had posted the transactions in the order they occurred you also would have gotten one fee. As it is they hit you with 5 times that.

The banks claim that it costs them money to cover overdrafts. This is certainly true, however, I was watching cspan this morning and a banking representative attempted to state that the cost to banks is in excess of 10$ for each overdraft. I find it difficult to believe that it costs the bank more than 10$ fund my $2.50 overdraft. Putting that aside it still doesn’t add up to 35$!

By: Randall G

Randall G — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:45:49 +0000

Cry me a friggin’ river. People need to be responsible and know what they have or don’t have in their accounts. In addition, what in the heck is the difference between an overdraft fee and an NSF fee? They’re about the same from my experience. Would you rather go through the inconvenience of correcting your NSFs all over town or pay the same fee (or less) as the NSF fee and avoid the inconvenience? Take some dang responsibility and don’t write checks if you don’t have enough money in your account!

By: Sam B

Sam B — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:11:09 +0000

I have Bank of America and they used to charge $25 for overdraft. Then you could call customer service and link your checking to your savings and reduce the overdraft fee to $10. Now they’re involved in a lawsuit because they somehow were “encouraging” people to overdraft more frequently. I’d rather just have my card denied.