Due to a major miscommunication between my husband and me, I just got dinged for about $264 in overdraft fees for 8 separate transactions on our checking account. Payday is Friday, and this is going to seriously eat into that check. Anyone have experience with this? Any way I can sweet talk the bank into forgiving some of these? They refused to give me overdraft protection when I applied for it due to some unsettled medical bills.
God, I hope nothing else hits the account in the next 36 hours. I’m so screwed. Where are my whiskey and sleeping pills?
You may be able to talk your way out of part of the fees, just as a good customer service move. That may depend on the mood of the person with that aurthority so don’t lose your temper or threaten to close your (unless you’ll really do it, and it’s unlikely that this threat would move them anyway). Good Luck.
Oh, before I could get overdraft protection and was living from paycheck to paycheck, I put an extra 50 dollars in the account and then disregarded it–didn’t write it down, etc. Saved me a few bucks a couple of times. Also, if you can go online to check your statement, it’s a good way to stay in balance between statements.
Going online was how I found out about this. It just happened within the last two days. I’m going to call customer service and see if maybe they’ll be nice to me.
Kallessa is right, as long as this is the first time. Many banks will forgive a first mistake.
You might want to look into a near by credit union. I’ve belonged to to a couple different ones and both had the policy that your attached savings account was your overdraft protection.
If you have online banking, then you probably also have online bill payment. I’d use it if I were you, and avoid using checks like the plague. I absolutely hate having hundreds of dollars worth of paper outstanding on my account.
The only disadvantage with online bill payment is sometimes it doesn’t work! One time, our phones were cut off because the bank didn’t carry out the payment properly. Through checking and re-checking the payment to the phone company on the statement, I found absolutely no error on my part.
I rarely write checks, but we do use our ATM/debit cards quite a bit. Too much, apparently.
I just talked to a nice lady in the bank’s customer service department and since I’ve been a good customer for nearly a decade now, they were willing waive half the overdraft fees. That’s much, much better.
Time to re-evaluate our banking practices! And possibly confiscate the hubby’s check card…
Boy, check cards have gotten us into trouble before! Hubby travels quite a bit, and while he would always tell me the large charges he put on debit, he would often forget the ten bucks for gas or fifteen bucks for dinner. Well, over the course of a month, that can add up to well over a hundred dollars! So, he started taking a fixed sum of cash out of the ATM at the beginning of each week, and saving his debit card for a real emergency. Things have been much better since then. Another option might be to have separate accounts for spending money and bill paying. To me, it seems easier to just take out the spending money in cash, but I’ve known people who keep a separate account just to pay bills out of, and it works for them.
When I moved for graduate school, I set up a savings account and attached it to my checking account. The only access I have to that account is through online transfers or by walking into a bank - I can’t get at that money through my ATM. My bank let me set it up so that if my checking account was going to be overdrawn, funds would be transferred from the savings to the checking automatically. That’s saved my butt a couple of times, early on before I became religious about checking my account online and balancing my checkbook, including all debit/check card purchases. I have a $5 annual fee for using my savings account as overdraft protection, and if it actually gets used, it’s $3 for each automatic transfer. I figure those are pretty cheap compared to OD charges.
You might look into setting up a basic savings account - one with minimal fees and the like - and setting up a system like that if your bank offers it (I don’t see why they wouldn’t, but who knows what different banks are like).
I’ll second the savings account overdraft protection scheme. Even if you can’t afford to save much right now, you probably still have to set aside something each month for the mortgage or rent, so you can use the savings account for that, and you’ll be covered for most of the month anyway.
I do think overdraft fees are excessive, since the bank always gets their money back when they take it out of your next deposit. And why should the penalty for an overdraft of $1.50 be the same as one for $150.00?
I have overdraft protection, with a $3 fee every time money is transfered to cover a check or a debit.
They send the notice that you’ve overdrafted by snail mail, so it’s business three days after the first draft (assuming I’m organized enough to be checking the mail daily) so I usually rack up at least three fees whenever it happens. And one time it happened at the beginning of the month, and then again at the end of the month and we exceeded the 10 electronic transactions per month limit on our savings account, so my electronic student loan payment was refused!
All of which would be avoided if I just balanced the checkbook more often so I have only myself to blame, really.
We’re looking into our options for overdraft protection now. Looks like we have a choice between a savings account and a secure card that requires a $300.00 deposit to start with. Either way it’s going to require a little investment, but anything’s better than pouring money into overdraft fees. It’s not like we let this happen all the time, but I’d prefer that it NEVER happen.
I think we’re also going to give my husband a weekly cash allowance. He doesn’t need much since I’m the one who keeps track of the finances (I’m getting an F this week, but it’s usually fine) and the only money he ever really spends is buying his lunch during the workday. We’ll figure this out eventually. Our first wedding anniversary is next Tuesday and I think we’ve learned to handle these crises pretty well in that time. Yay us!
We actually have two accounts just for this reason. I keep the “household” account balanced and he has his “mad” money account. If he runs out, it only affects his account and not our bills.
If the household account runs out of cash, then I have no one but myself to blame.