Bank fees piss me off too. I’ll drive 10 miles out of my way to avoid a buck fifty service charge on the ATM. Bastids ain’t getting my money.
Sounds like the OPer has a beef with his employer. He can probably get them to cover the $33 fee as well, since they made a mistake. My employer will even write letters of apology to people who’ve had checks bounced.
Not so much. A reasonable institution would have seen the pending funds and made the decision not to return and charge. At least that’s what my bank does. And I worked there 11.5 years before leaving for another job, so I know that is their policy. I’ve watched them enter the pay/return and charge/no charge decisions into the computer. The decision is made by each branch’s manager.
My top three list of who fucked up, 1 being who “fucked up the most”, 3 being who “fucked up the least”.
Yeah, we fucked up for trying to use funds we didn’t have. Silly me for thinking that my direct deposit - which had been direct deposited every two weeks for the past 4 months or so - would be in the bank on the day it was supposed to be in the bank on this particular week.
And I wasn’t bitching about the overdraft protection, per se, but how the bank could withdraw money from my account all hours of the day and night (which caused me to be overdrawn in the first place), when I can only deposit during certain hours and cash deposits aren’t posted to the account till the following day. These points have since been cleared up and explained by various posters more clearly than by the representative of the bank. If I understood how banks are run and the pertaining laws, I wouldn’t have had to go the bank and ask, “What the fuck?” Instead, I asked the bank what had happened, and I recieved no clear explanation of how things work. Now that I understand, I’m more angry at my work for buggering things up in the first place by not getting my pay to me on payday.
It might be worthwhile to institute a small claims action against BoA (constrictor) for the $66 – plus damages, given the facts of the case. You had adequate money on deposit with them to cover the debits you made – it’s not your problem how they choose to do their bookkeeping.
It may not get you anywhere – but I’ll bet that having to defend it arouses some problems for them – and they might offer to settle for the $66, to get out of the potential of a decision against them.
I have to disagree with this. It costs money to file in small claims court and there’s no guarantee that the bank would settle, refunding both the fees that they had a legal right to charge (and, more than likely, informed their customers of) as well as the small claims filing fee. I could be wrong, but it sounds like Crunchy Frog didn’t actually have the funds available to cover the debits since his direct deposit didn’t go through. If anything, I’d be talking to my employer, as others have suggested and Crunchy Frog says he’s going to do.
I’d also be shoppping around for better rates and policies at another financial institution as well. But that’s just me.
Good luck Crunchy and slacker. Glad to have been of some use here. 
I feel the OP’s pain but what can you do?
We’re all “little potatoes” to these big jazzbo’s. You get pissed and move your account, guess what,thousands of us “small potatoes” are switching accounts everyday. They lost you today? Big deal, they gained me, or someone like me.
Like I said, what can you do? :mad:
Well, we’re not dopers for nothin’, are we? 