http://www.fox6.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=57681D57-B4FA-4A45-AF4A-2C5983BE734F


According to a new report, Americans pay more than 10 billion dollars annually in overdraft charges, but many consumers say they never authorized their bank to provide that service.

According to the study by the Center For Responsible Lending, banks charge on average about 34 dollars each overdraft fee.

The center surveyed more than 24-hundred customers of the nation's 15 largest banks.

61% said they would rather have their debit card purchase denied at checkout if it would otherwise overdraw their account and incur a fee.

Lawmakers have proposed a bill that would require banks to get written consent before putting customers in overdraft loans.

The legislation would also force banks to give overdraft warnings at the ATM or at the point of purchase.

The banking industry says consumers must bear the responsibility to balance their checkbooks to avoid extra charges.


About what I put in bold....

To me, that is how it should be to begin with. If the money isnt there, you cant buy with that card. :dunno

About what I put in bold....

To me, that is how it should be to begin with. If the money isnt there, you cant buy with that card. :dunno

:agree

i agree! our card does that all the flipping time. we check our bank via phone or online before going out but certain things wont go through for 2+wks by then we arent thinking bout that purchase and forget to check if it went through but we still check the account and for purchases we can think of (big ones) we get something that could of waited till pay day and then everything goes through right before payday so we now have a negative balance plus fees paycheck goes in and by the time its balanced out we have nothing left due to those damn fees for our back it is 20 for each item that sends you over but the deal is they dont tell you the first time you do it. we have had almost no money after right after payday after bills and everything because of that. stupid ppl should have to ask if its what you want and make you sign or let you know and give you the option at the checkout stand to decide if its worth it.

i agree! our card does that all the flipping time. we check our bank via phone or online before going out but certain things wont go through for 2+wks by then we arent thinking bout that purchase and forget to check if it went through but we still check the account and for purchases we can think of (big ones) we get something that could of waited till pay day and then everything goes through right before payday so we now have a negative balance plus fees paycheck goes in and by the time its balanced out we have nothing left due to those damn fees for our back it is 20 for each item that sends you over but the deal is they dont tell you the first time you do it. we have had almost no money after right after payday after bills and everything because of that. stupid ppl should have to ask if its what you want and make you sign or let you know and give you the option at the checkout stand to decide if its worth it.

Or people should keep track of their own transactions and balance the account that way.

Umm...people...just becuase you have checks or a card does not mean you have money!!

I agree too..DH gets pissed when he finds out he has no money and a day earlier it says he has over 3oo dollars..he doesn't understand why it doesn't automatically update and why it puts the money back in the account that he already used. With all the technology that everyone has I dont understand why they can't do that..and I do agree with the keeping track of the money but I think they should do there part as well.

Or people should keep track of their own transactions and balance the account that way.

:agree Everything goes into our check register and we balance it ourselves. I've had transactions take a month to clear my account, but that money is already spent in my eyes!

Or people should keep track of their own transactions and balance the account that way.:agree :yes

what dh and i do is we always make sure that we have at least $100 in our account. $100 means in our eyes that there is NO money in our account.

Its funny... I just had this talk with hubby..
I am from Canada and I can tell you that it is so different. It is very automatic there. If I made a debit (what we call Interac) purchase, it shows automatically. I had a $200 dollar overdraft that cost me $5 to use plus interest. Very nice to have. I have had a bitch of a time getting use to it out here. The whole available balance thing... grrr...
Anyhoo, I guess there are some things that Canucks are just better at! ;)

As it has already been said, simply keeping track of what is spent in comparison to you what you had in the bank there wouldn't be a problem. I check our account online nearly every and keep track of not only what we have spent, but what has cleared the bank. If I wrote a check, that money is spent and subtracted from our balance. We have the available balance thing which is good to a point but not everything gets subtracted from that right away, like checks and some online purchases. I know there was some thing about checks being subtracted from you account automatically when processed at the store but I have not seen any evidence of it yet. It really is simple- don't spend money you don't have in the account yet. If you really have a money emergency, that is what a credit card is for.

You have the option to opt out from overdrawing your account. You just have to tell the financial service representative that you don't want that service and they should be able to stop it for you. When you open an account it tells you about all the fees that you could incure on the account. Even if you buy something for a .01 and there is no money they will still charge you the fee. No money, don't use it :dunno

I think people should just keep track with their accounts. I look at mine online EVERYDAY!! :thumbsup

navy fed is the worst at getting things through. I finally convinced DH to switch to BofA which has pending transactions show up online.

navy fed is the worst at getting things through. I finally convinced DH to switch to BofA which has pending transactions show up online.

Why don't you switch to USAA? is a military bank and they are so good at it.

:agree Everything goes into our check register and we balance it ourselves. I've had transactions take a month to clear my account, but that money is already spent in my eyes!


:yes we do the same.

USAA is AWESOME at making sure every little thing is put online that you buy with your debit card!

I think it's great that everyone is really into balancing their checkbooks every time that you make a purchase. But I think that it takes either having been taught to do so from the very start (so you don't have to think about it), or having a certain amount of, I suppose, time and self control to stop before you make a purchase and write it in the check book. Or sit down at the end of the night and tally up your receipts.

You could say the same sort of thing about dieting, exercising, quitting smoking. You've just got to buckle down and take the time to keeping track of your dimes. While it's in your best interest, it's not necessarily what's on your mind, easy to change old habits, etc. And the system is set up to make it easy to spend and easy to overdraft without warning.

What I thought was really tricky was the way BoA was moving "overdraft" money into your account when you went below a certain amount ( I believe that it was $100) without notifying customers. The normal checking account balance displayed as a combination of your real balance plus their $100 overdraft rather than keeping overdraft like a seperate credit line. That seemed really shady to me. Yes, it turned out to be in the fine print. A coworker of mine was hit with that right after BoA took over our local bank. She didn't put aside time to read over all the changes to her account. I felt bad, especially since things were tight at the time, but everyone is busy-busy-busy these days, they just don't take the time to keep track of everything.

No, they shouldn't be spending money that they don't have. Yes, they should know what they've spent and what their balance is. But in reality it doesn't always work that way. I think that it would be a lot more customer friendly if they were given the option to dip into overdraft (like in emergencies) or have the card denied without fee, and pay via some other method. Currently if you cancel overdraft, having your card denied also charges a high fee. Maybe someone needs to start a financial responsibility campaign so that it isn't an issue, but until then, the banks are totally raking in the loot.

this just happened to me last week.

That is why I love USAA. Navy Federal is so shitty about getting things processed.

People (including myself and DH in the past) have relied too much on their online accounts to see how much "money" they had. We would ALWAYS think we had all this money and forget we had a huge check going through that hadn't processed yet. Over the last year, and many many overdrafts later, we started to be able to track our expenses - but for us, who weren't taught how to do so, it's hard to get in the habit. One thing for us that has helped a lot is I have a credit card. The only thing we use the debit card (checking) account for is paying each bill every month, including the entire credit card bill. The credit card pays for only the essential food, supplies, etc. needed each month, and credit card purchases are much easier to track as they go through the same day with USAA.

i have never understood why people dont keep track themselves. it isnt the banks job. just be happy they give you online banking. we dont use the checkbook register because i am to lazy to do the math, but we use microsoft money, tells me when all of my bills are due and everything. major lifesaver for me! i dont think they whould have to tell you at the register if it is going to put you in the whole, you have to be responsible to have an account and keeping track of your own finances is how to be responsible!