[stephengillie]

This is one of the financial barriers that severely impacts the ability of poor people to amass monetary wealth, but is invisible to the rich. Before they were overdraft fees, they were Non-Sufficient Funds fees for overdrafting, and these NSF fees still exist for those who can't even get the "overdraft loan".

> Banks originally offered clients this service as a courtesy.

Banks originally opted in at-risk customers. This was before payday loans became popular, and the market is one and the same. If you were short of funds this month, you'll probably be short next month too.

Source: personally being an at-risk customer who was opted in without asking.

[delinka]

Not only opted in without permission, but receiving derisive reactions when requesting to opt out. "You wouldn't want to be embarrassed by having your payment refused would you?" Sure, that's fine, because there's invariably some issue with the store network, or the electronic payment processor that randomly refuses payment anyway. What's the difference?

"Are you sure you don't want this 'protection'?" I'm protecting myself from your fee. That's protection enough.

Furthermore, I worked in IT at a bank for awhile and witnessed many wealthy customers coming through to cash large checks for which they hadn't the funds - a head teller would sign off on the cash, no fees charged, and the customer leaves with the money.

[noonespecial]

The most egregious example that has happened to me: I had a checking account with a hidden $5 fee if the balance went below $5000 in a given month. I made a big purchase, left the account with about $3 in it and scheduled a transfer from savings for the next day... you know how it played out: $5 fee on the low balance, $50 charge to "borrow" the $2 all taken from the transfer the next day. They call that a "service". ha.

[mikekchar]

I once had a bank account with $100 in it. I went travelling and didn't access the account for a long time. Eventually, I returned back and found that they had sent me a letter saying that they had close my account for inactivity. The fee for closing the account was $120, which put the account at -$20. They were further charging me a $75 overdraft fee and informed me that my account was in arrears for $95 dollars. I did not pay them, but neither did I get my $100 back.

[yohoho22]

Did failing to pay up not put you in the bad graces of ChexSystems? Did it affect your ability to open other accounts later on?

[mikekchar]

I think I got lucky. This was a good 30 years ago, so my memory is a bit hazy, but I think what happened was that they deactivated my account, which incurred the charge. Since I didn't technically have an account any more, they couldn't do anything. I suspect that they weren't supposed to actually deactivate the account completely and screwed up. Back then banking systems were a lot less computerised so I think there were probably lots of errors.

[twistedpair]

I had a similar fee for not having a transaction into my checking account for the month. I visited the branch to contest it. They waived the fee, and I asked the branch manager, "So I just need 'a deposit' each month, right? How about $0.01?" She didn't answer me, but I setup my ADP account at work the next day and BofA's been getting $0.01 into checking every month for years now.

And you know what? I'm pretty sure it costs them more than $0.01 to process that direct deposit. ;)

[CydeWeys]

Hell, at that point I'd do one $0.01 deposit every week, just to cost them more.

[fredkbloggs]

Couldn't wait until the next day to make the purchase? Couldn't use cash or a credit card instead?

You're an adult. You're obviously literate or you couldn't be posting here. Unless these fees were not disclosed to you (a MAJOR breach of the law if true), you had every opportunity to know that this would occur and to prevent it. Try taking responsibility for your own actions.

[mbrameld]

You can't imagine a scenario where a responsible adult has had a checking account with a balance over $5000 for many years and has never run in to the charge for dropping below that level, eventually forgetting about that $5 fee? Now if you managed to picture that and believe it's possible for a responsible adult to forget about an obscure fee his bank has never charged him before, try to imagine your home's AC goes out in the middle of August when it's 100 degrees out. Now you're stressed out but you've got enough money in checking to cover the replacement that day, so you call somebody out to replace it and schedule a transfer from savings the same day. Can you maybe see just a little how a mistake like that could happen to a responsible adult? Do you have every possible fee your bank charges committed to memory?

And finally, are you trying to add anything to this discussion or just displaying your self-righteousness?

[kefka]

Ah, so if every bank gives a 1000 page boilerplate "contract", and they all entail usurious fees, it's just the person's problem because they should have known?

Well, fuck that logic. All the banks are acting in a cartel with these. And banking is effectively required. Many workplaces require direct deposit, which guess what..... require a bank account.

Banking should be boring, simple, and hassle free. Contracts should be simple and readable, and not filled with dense legalese and caveats that say "tl;dr: we can change anything we like whenever we like. oh and we post it underneath a rock".

[fredkbloggs]

> Ah, so if every bank gives a 1000 page boilerplate "contract", and they all entail usurious fees, it's just the person's problem because they should have known?

Yes. If someone hands me a 1000-page contract and asks me to sign it, I'm walking out the door. As any sane person would.

> All the banks are acting in a cartel with these.

Well, (a) numerous posters (who otherwise agree with you) seem to disagree on this point and have offered both specific and general recommendations for banks that perhaps are not. And (b), if that's true, you should open your own bank. If you can't, then you should go look into why you can't, because the barriers to entry in this space are 100% artificial; that is, they are creations of the government. Not the market.

> Banking should be boring, simple, and hassle free. Contracts should be simple and readable, and not filled with dense legalese and caveats that say "tl;dr: we can change anything we like whenever we like. oh and we post it underneath a rock".

I agree 100%. I look forward to opening an account at your bank.

[outworlder]

And, as part of his adult responsibilities, he's obviously responsible for watching his bank account balance like a hawk. It's not like adults have to do anything else.

Also, you're assuming the "purchase" was something superfluous that could wait.

[goldenkey]

A different angle. But probably for the same reason. You kinda wonder why these poor communities don't have community-owned businesses. Crowdfunded works so well, why not in ghettos? It doesn't help when most people don't have any spending money to contribute because they are drained dry by the banks...

[Spooky23]

That's what credit unions are. You don't have many in the ghetto, because most aren't really communities, which is why they are what they are.

[munin]

> You kinda wonder why these poor communities don't have community-owned businesses. Crowdfunded works so well, why not in ghettos?

They do: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674030710

Is the service better? Unclear.