I’m not mad at the bank. This was years ago, and I’m happy with the way my bank handled it.
And you’re still completely missing my point. I was balancing my checkbook the whole way! I’m going to have a battle of wits with someone who had the reading comprehension of an addlepated chimpanzee. FYI, I’ve balanced multimillion dollar accounts to the penny during a brief stint in accounting, so I don’t need any fucking lectures from you, m’kay?
No. The ATM receipts were a supporting argument. They were not the main argument. Re-read the fucking post. The reason I got burned is because the bank processed the transactions Sunday-Friday-Saturday because of the high-to-low order. I assumed (quite logically, as it seems at least several banks do it this way) that the ATM transactions would be recorded instantly. There’s no reason for them not to be. And I know for a fact the Friday transaction was from a bank ATM. I was balancing merrily along the way, and got hit with fees because I didn’t know those esoteric ins-and-outs of bank deposit/withdrawal processing.
Your argument so far has been, well it’s your fault because you weren’t keeping track of your finances. Except that I was. Re-read my posts.
And God forbid I should trust the bank to tell me how much money I actually have.
Sorry, this thread exploded when I wasn’t looking.
Lets back way up before you same I put all the blame on the banks. I used to be a Libertarian and Banks as idealized entities who make money by superior investment of the inflows from deposits and outflows from loans were something I considered good.
I did mess up, but when a company divides one transaction in two to double an already outrageous fee its kinda overwhelming. I’m not a libertarian anymore, and manipulative things like this are just one reason (as well as the fact that I no longer see corporations as entrepenurial and efficient, they are just as bloated and bureaucratic as any government division) and if you think about it, Wells Fargo is making more money off me right now than it ever would in a lifetime of prudent customers. If Wells Fargo can make as much as it is now and cause me to leave (and many customers won’t after this sort of thing), it still comes out ahead. There is no bound against growth in overdraft fees except the complete INABILITY of the customer to pay them (ie bankruptcy, or avoiding payment)
I’m not saying I wasn’t darn lax in having it happen in the first place, I was. But I came very close to disaster without overdrafting three years ago when I had to juggle sending my rent cashiers check and depositing my pay. If I’d have overdrafted then, the huge fees would have sent me into a spiral leading to eviction, or at least asking for help from my family.
Overdraft fees should be in BIG BOLD letters when signing up for a new account. A lot of people have a hard time reading the fine print even if they want to, and since it is all legal speak its damn hard to understand, and always depressing because of the huge legal manipulation in the banks favor. And this is EVERWHERE.
Oh, and my check is still waiting on hold for 4 more days, for WHAT reason exactly? Why do you hold in this circumstance? Its not the writing of the check who is in financial trouble its the receiver, I can’t even comprehend this except by greed.
You said you’ve never had an overdraft before. Have you approached the bank asking them to reverse the charges yet? Seriously. Don’t been an asshole about it, just approach them and kindly explain the situation. If the person who you’re talking to has no authority, just speak to a supervisor. I have yet to hear of a bank that will refuse to reverse the first overdraft charges. It especially helps your case if you’ve been a long-time customer, but if this truly is your first time, I’ll bet you they’ll waive the fees.
I’ve been a customer since `99 except I joined a different bank that got merged into Wells Fargo. I don’t have a good opinion of them, even before this happened, they “LOST” a deposit of mine once for three days before finding it. I don’t know whether they will or not. Its more than the 66 bucks I showed in the OP. But I’ll ask them. Either way I’d like to move on to a credit union.
It’s always worth a shot to ask. Like I said, I’d be very surprised if they don’t refund at least those extra fees for ATM service charges, if not the whole shebang. Go down to the bank in person, though, and explain your situation. Be polite, but be firm. My parents–who are probably the most fiscally responsible people I’ve ever known–had something like this happen when they first got a checking account. It was completely their fault but, not having English as their native language and not being aware of the rules of banking (they’re the old-fashioned and responsible type who bank with passbooks and pay for everything in full in cash or cashier’s check), the bank reversed their first overdraft (an honest error) without even a question.
Two situations I expericnced.
#1) I was buying an item on E-bay and was using Pay Pay to pay for it. I knew I did not have enough money to pay using my checking account so I switched pay method to a Credit Card. Somehow I goofed and the purchase went through on an account that would be overdwawn.
I called Pay Pal to cancel the charge right away and they told me they couldn’t but if I called my bank they could stop the “wire-transfer”
I called PNC and was told they couldn’t stop it but if I had the cash in the account by 9:30am there would be no problem because they reconsile deposits immediately and withdraws they subtract as of 10:00am
I had the money in the account 9:35 and there were no fees
#2)
I have my main checking account at Commerce Bank North East, I’ve overdrawn my account 5 times or so all under $1.50 which I recity as soon as I notice it (I check my balances daily) and have never been charged a NSF or overdrawn fee.
No, Mauvaise, you’ve got it all wrong. The people who run the banks and set policy for things like this don’t judge you morally – they just want your money. They’ve got the numbers all worked out, and they know that X number of people will overdraw by Y number of dollars and if they charge Z for those overcharges, they’ll make a shitload of money. And that is ALL they care about.
Your basic notion that people would not care about the overdraft fees is also wrong. The might not care as much, but they’d care, because who wants to give money to their bank for, essentially, nothing? Why do you think “free” checking is so popular?
It’s the attitude of people like you, who insist on putting a moral component into this issue: “People who write checks are BAAAAAD! They made a MISTAAAAAAKE! They must be PUNNNNNNNISHED! They took the bank’s PRECCCCIOUSSSS!” that allows bankers to crank up the fees so high. They work the guilt of those who make mistakes and they work the moral superiority of those who don’t, but being in the financial services industry, they’re very hard-headed on these topics and just want t make sure they’re on the plus side of the transaction.
See quote above re: bankers work the emotional responses of their customers. Your words are music to a bankers’ ears.
Exactly! It’s not an emotional guilt trip for the bankers, but they’ll gladly let the customers guilt themselves out of their own money.
It’s not pointless to Zette. She’s getting a chance to score some cheap moral superiority, and apparently this is quite important to her.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor
It’s not pointless to Zette. She’s getting a chance to score some cheap moral superiority, and apparently this is quite important to her.[/QUOTE]
Holy crap, they’re ON TO ME!
This is true for merchant point of sale transactions, but for the most part not true for ATM transactions. ATM transactions should be sent to your bank in realtime. However, the bank may internally batch post these transactions to the customer accounts, if that is how their back end process is setup. I’ve seen examples of both.
I can’t follow this. Is the check being deposited into your account and you’re overdrawn? If so, it depends–it could be due to the amount of the check & your overdraft. Without seeing the computer screen flags I couldn’t tell you for sure.
Checks aren’t always on hold because the writer’s checks are bad. There are a few situations in which I relayed earlier that the depositor is the reason the bank is holding the check.
I posted above as my husband. So sorry.
I’m still wondering how it’s defensible 99 percent of the time for someone to overdraw their checking account and then bitch about getting hit with a fee. Do people really not know about it? It was very prominent in my bank’s brochures, and it wasn’t in legalspeak. Furthermore, if you can’t read or understand the fine print, someone in the bank will assist you if you ask.
If I sign a contract to buy a house and then decide to stop paying for it because I didn’t bother to read/understand the fine print, does that make it okay? No. I didn’t have to sign that contract. The onus is on you, if you open your account, to maintain it.
Yes, sometimes the bank makes mistakes. They will rectify them if you bitch to them. There are plenty of things I would change about the financial industry. But I can’t see how you can agree to abide by the terms of an agreement, and then complain when you’re penalized for violating that agreement.
I do think the charges in most cases are excessive, and I don’t agree with the exorbitant account maintenance fees, but until I know more about how money is distributed through the bank, I won’t try to offer a better solution.
When I worked in a bank it was common knowlege that most customers weren’t profitable. In fact, most cost us a lot of money. Very few covered the marginal costs of sending out their statements, handling their checking/ATM transactions, etc. Even fewer covered the allocated fixed costs of maintaining the system.
Despite the warm fuzzy ads, banks aren’t in the business of helping you acheive your financial goals. They’re in the business of making money for their shareholders. They don’t owe anyone a low balance checking account. They offer those products because they hope the customers will become profitable at some time (e.g. they age and acquire more wealth or take out credit products with them) or other reasons make it good business sense (most banks are acquisition minded and none wants to be known as the bank where poor people can’t go–it makes for very bad PR when you want to go in and buy out that small bank in Topeka).
Way back when I was with the bank we had some discussions about setting up fee revenue systems. There was never a decision to sock it to the little guy. That may have happened in some cases, but it wasn’t the intention. Rather, the system was set up so that overall fee revenue under a certain system would cover costs and produce enough profit to cover the banks required return on investment. In those systems, we’d build in waivers for customers with profitable accounts. So the guy with a huge savings account would be given a certain number of NSF waivers on his checking account. However, we didn’t automatically set that up for the unprofitable accounts. It didn’t make sense–we were already losing money on them.
Also, sometimes systems are set up in the way that best fits the bank’s regulatory or accounting needs but may, in some cases, lead to unpleasant effects for a customer. If it affects too many good customers or leads to bad PR, the banks will take action. But they don’t do so for those customers that aren’t making them money (unless it gets the bank into regulatory or CRA problems). A $40 ATM withdrawal and $2 ATM fee going through as separate transactions generating separate fees is likely the result of the accounting system.
If you don’t like the way a particular bank charges you fees, find another one or go to a credit union. Ask about fees up front. I didn’t like it that fee information was buried in the fine print, but the argument was that using valuable space for printing a negative wasn’t a good idea for bank brochures. When I was with the bank, you could get a printed fee schedule. They were separate pieces from the marketing brochures (and most people never picked them up out of the brochure racks). I don’t know if they still produce those, but a bank associate should be able to tell you about their fee system if you ask.
pulykamell, the fact that you intentionally rather than carelessly overdrew your account doesn’t make your case any stronger. I know you didn’t intend to get hit with so many charges, but you entered into a transaction account arrangement with the bank and then tried to get them to loan you money. Banks don’t like that and they’re going to try to discourage it.
By that last sentence I meant that banks don’t like to have to loan money by covering NSF drafts. They certainly do like it if you come to them for credit products after opening a checking account! But only if you go through the channels of getting your credit checked and approved.
I keep seeing people telling anyone who doesn’t like the system to find a new bank of CU, which would be wonderful, if it could be done. But I haven’t seen a bank here that doesn’t charge the types of overdraft fees that are being discussed here. It’s pretty standard in both banks and CUs, in my experience with both. So “going somewhere else” isn’t really a solution.
Why wouldn’t they like to? If they’re making $35 off every overdrawn transaction, that doesn’t seem to be a money-losing proposition to me. It would have been far easier for all parties involved if they simply refused/bounced my last transaction. The ATM wouldn’t have given me money. I’d be out nothing for the attempt. But since I’ve been a long-time and “good customer” (their words, not mine), they give me the pleasure of overdrawing my account, for a $35 fee per transaction.
And you know what? That’s perfectly fair. I have no qualms with this. If they really didn’t want me to overdraw, they simply wouldn’t let me do it. I played within the rules, knew I was getting into a $35 fee on the last transaction, and accepted it. I don’t understand what the problem is.
They’re only getting the $35 NSF fee from those who pay them back. Not everyone does so. I can’t remember how many NSFs were never paid back (I never worked with the checking products), but I do know it wasn’t an insignificant number. So part of your $35 fee goes to cover the losses of other customers who took the money and ran.
I’m not sure why they don’t just allow transactions to bounce. I was told it’s because customers like the protection of not bouncing checks or being unable to withdraw money. Sure, many merchants may charge you less for a bounced check than an ATM fee, but you may also be placed on the list of those who aren’t allowed to ever write checks there again. Apartment landlords were notorious for this (which is why many customers actually liked the idea of largest checks clearing first). But I was never naive enough to believe that the fee revenue wasn’t ever considered. As I mentioned, most customers are quite unprofitable. The banks do like to recover some of their costs.
I was lucky when I worked for a bank because employee accounts had the special privileges of the high balance accounts. For lower balance customers, a credit union or smaller bank is often a better choice for them. I don’t think banks are evil or anything. They just want to make money and most customers aren’t doing that for them. They’re not going to look out for your best interest at the cost of their own.
I strongly suspect it’s because banks have run the numbers and have discovered that all those lovely $30+ charges make for a nice profit for them, even when people bounce and run. I also suspect that such charges are in fact a small percentage of the total that get paid. Most people use bank accounts for their intended purposes, and when the occasional bounced check charge comes along, they pay it without quibbling at all, because them’s the rules.
I suspect that banks could charge a much more reasonable fee – say $10 per transaction – and still cover the cost of processing, the cost of customers who bounce and run, and still make a very nice profit. Basically, they’re happy to jack the fees up until they see a significant loss in customers, or Congressional investigations.
I don’t ever get overdrawn. I don’t ever write checks.
I make my payments via the online bank interface, and none of my payments is set up to go automatically. They only happen when I click the button.
My deposits go straight to my checking account but then I manually move a chunk of it each pay period to a different account which the ATM card references. The ATM card can’t remove money from the account that the online payments are made from.