Comments on: A Guide to the New Bank Overdraft Protection Fees Rules

By: Elaine

Elaine — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:59:05 +0000

I agree with the ones above that said stay away form Bank of America they are still charging tons of fees bogus overdraft fees that they charge even when the money is in your account believe me I know …in the past two months they have charged me $445 in overdraft fees and even when i show them that there was still money there they always have an explaination and will not reverse any of the charges.

By: sunshine

sunshine — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:14:53 +0000

HI all:

I agree that the opt-in overdraft services can be pretty inconvenient but at times it is very convenient. Well it was for me. Let me explain. I needed a new living room suit badly. The purchase came to about $1600.00. So, of course, I used my opt-in services. I’ve paid that balance and my account is now in the positive. So the opt-in services can be very useful! Now I need a new bedroom suit. I’m almost tempted to do it again.

By: James

James — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 15:26:41 +0000

The ‘overdraft privilege’ product that has been ‘marketed’ to Bank customers over the past 10-15 years is a poor excuse for a ‘service’. Strunk and Associates and Banks who bought their lie are to blame for the demonization of the traditional overdraft coverage methods employed by Community Banks. Unfortunatly, the ethical community Banks who chose not to participate in this scam are subject to the new OD regulations just like the scoundrels who caused the problem.

However – don’t be fooled that big nationals and internet-only banks are better. For example – Ally Bank is a wolf in sheep’s clothing — who are they really??? GMAC finance – propped up by your tax $$ through TARP funds. Poor bank, great marketing department. When you do business with these guys you may ultimately be disappointed, AND you truly take money out of your own community. Do business with a local community Bank. You will understand the value of their service when you have a problem you need to work out. And remember – the best overdraft protection comes from you – keep track of your balance and link your accounts to provide your own OD protection.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:30:22 +0000

I worked at a bank for four years. Overdraft fees are one of the sleaziest practices in the industry. I always wondered how banks could make money on “free checking”, when they’d even give you up to $100 to open your account. The way it works is that, for every so many customers that are responsible and lucky enough to never overdraw their account, there is one who will do so on a regular basis. That one customer is worth hundreds of dollars a year in fee income (read: free money) and pays for the costs of servicing the dozens of responsible users’ accounts. The problem is that any bank which does not do this is also not able to offer free checking with no strings attached plus a $100 free gift for opening a checking account. So there is a “race to the bottom” and almost all banks went with the automatic overdraft business model.

I’m glad that Obama’s banking law fixed this corrupt practice. Many banks may decide that they will have to reattach strings to their free checking accounts, but at least they’re not making scapegoats out of a few customers in order to give a free service to others.

By: Peterson

Peterson — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:00:11 +0000

Everyone should stay away from bank of America. They charged my account three overdraft fees concurrently.I did no realize my account was overdrawn for several days only to find another overdraft fee, reason being my account was overdrawn for more than five days. I talked to one of the customer representative and She informed me that there is nothing they can do about it. Tried to convince me about overdraft protection, which did not make any sense. Taking money from my saving account to cover my negative balance in my checking account is something i can do myself. So how does it benefit me as a customer for having overdraft protection? Simply put:BOA is out to make money out of its customers through unscrupulous means like overdraft fees.Had to close my account immediately.

By: Pankaj

Pankaj — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:02:09 +0000

What really sucked about my case was – the bank never paid the money, they just moved my money from my savings account to my checking account.. and still charged me this fees.

By: Pankaj

Pankaj — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:58:17 +0000

Overdraft protection needed to go. The notion of “Spend money only if you have it” got me and I got away with Credit Cards and decided to use only my Debit card. Good idea, right? Wrong…
So, while I stopped paying APR, I began paying these OD protection fees. I talked to the bank and they never would let me opt out.

I had this very “bad” habit of moving my money from checking account to saving account if I wasnt expecting any payments. That would keep my account at 30/40 odd bucks for about 4/5 days in a month. Now, a few of my service providers (my water bill, my monthly association fees and my cleaning lady) never withdrew money when I expect them. They hold off for a couple of months sometime. About 3/4 times in a year, I got caught in that zone.. and wallah …

For once, Obama (or whoever) did something that directly impacted my positively. I am an independant so, dont slam me for favoring Obama

By: G.E. Miller

G.E. Miller — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:51:40 +0000

@ Brenda – I have heard of some very questionable business practices from BoA, indeed.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:00:51 +0000

Bank of America has given me three different stories concerning the “overdraft fee”. They are essentially thieves. On one “overdraft” after going thru transactions with the so called customer service person, we discovered I had not actually overdrawn. Why was I charged? Well she couldn’t tell me. I am moving from Bank of America. DO NOT DO BUSINESS with BOA. They will rip you off and are kings of Customer NO SERVICE. They stink.

By: Honey

Honey — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:50:44 +0000

Actually, I didn’t ask for them to credit back the fee – I called because I tracked my expenditures and was trying to figure out if there had been a fraudulent charge. The person I spoke to was very patient and spent 30 minutes or so on the phone with me to track down what caused the account to overdraw. It turned out I had not recorded an ATM withdrawal. I thanked her for her time and said that I was relieved to know my account hadn’t been compromised, and she spontaneously offered to credit me back the overdraft fee.

This is why I have stayed with Bank of America despite the fact that they don’t have the greatest reputation. I have never asked for anything except information when I called (“I don’t know why this happened and I am just trying to understand”), but I have always been treated very well. Another time I got a personal thank-you letter from the person I had spoken to on the phone accompanied by a free account upgrade.