Bank Overdraft Fees Are Sucking Americans Dry
Overdraft fees, we have all paid them at one point in time in our financial lives. The cost of over-drafting your account keeps climbing. At Sun Trust as of July 1st they raised the fee from $32.00 to $35.00 every time you go in the negative. Most banks will clear the highest item first so that they can charge you a fee on each of the lower items.
The bank is constantly pushing us to set up over-draft protection with one of their credit cards. So when you overdraft they charge your credit card, charge you a $15.00 fee to do this for you, then if you do not pay your bill on time or in full they are going to hit you with interest and late fees. It is a never-ending cycle.
They will link a savings account to your checking account for protection but again, they will charge you $15.00 for transferring the money in your account to prevent an overdraft fee.
According to a recent study by the Center for Responsible Lending the nations 15 largest banks collected $17.5 billion dollars last year from us for over-draft fees.
I love it when they tell you that they are going to give you a “one time courtesy” return of the over-draft fee. No one is perfect and life happens, banks should give us a set amount of “courtesies” per year. I am sure they would attract more customers this way.
There is a bill “gaining moment” that would require banks to tell people at the ATM and possibly at the checkout counter when their accounts run dry, It would also prohibit banks from charging overdraft fees unless customers have agree to pay them and it would prohibit the bank from clearing the highest check first.
Banks have also held and delayed deposits so that an overdraft incurs and they receive the fees.
We should take more responsibility with our money. The only way to not pay these fees is either not letting your account fall in the negative or for example, keep $1000.00 in your account and vow never to fall below that amount and you will not have to worry about being charged a $35.00 fee.
Banks continue to charge these ridiculous over draft while only offering pennies on CD’s, savings accounts, and mutual funds. No wonder there is a new bank popping up on each corner, they are getting rich!
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