[Touche]

Oh, you're under the illusion that a for-profit business' primary responsibility is to maximize the value they provide to their customers? Sorry but that's not the way the world works. Now that could possibly be the case if we lived in a country where banks were allowed to compete on things like "treating the customer right" but we don't live in such a country; we live in the one where ever more annoying fees is the only game in town.

But none of this is relevant from your (and my) point of view; ours is really simple. We're completely aware of the murky rules that apply when your account gets close to $0 and the best solution is to not use the account in that case.

[geofft]

No, I believe nothing of the sort and now I'm curious what part of my post conveyed that, so I can write in a less sloppy manner in the future. Sorry!

Judging solely from the point of view of the bank, and conditioned on the assumption that fees are to dissuade customers from behavior that hurts the bank, it's in the bank's interest:

1. To find a way for that behavior not to hurt it in the first place.

2. To actually, successfully dissuade behavior, so that the bank is hurt less.

3. To warn people right when they're about to hurt the bank, so they don't.

That matches the three questions I had.

If fees are themselves for the bank's profit, then yes, sure. But then we can just admit that the bank is charging fees to people who maintain low balances (= "poor people", to first order) for profit purposes, right? That seems clearly within the margin of rhetoric that "tax on poor people" is a fine description.