[thaumaturgy]

You're obnoxious, but you're right. I've suffered more than my fair share of overdraft fees, and every one of them was my own fault. It didn't help that my bank's online banking system was a filthy liar with a long-standing bug that caused it to display an incorrect balance (for up to a day or more) when there was an incoming transaction that wasn't pre-auth or posted -- but ultimately that just meant that I had to start writing down all of my charges and deposits, so that's what I did.

Overdraft fees are onerous, banks absolutely do exploit their poorer customers for extra revenue, several of the larger banks are next in line for most-hated organizations in America behind AT&T and Comcast, and the structure of fees across a wide array of services are all biased against the poor. But, none of that changes the truth that most overdraft fees could be avoided if the poor were more diligent about their finances.

[magicalist]

Oh please. Everyone should be more diligent about their finances. The difference is that someone with money says "oh damn it, I spent too much. I should buy less stuff next week" and someone without much money gets an overdraft fee.

Maybe the problem with the current system isn't poor people, the problem is just people. It's just that some people don't have any sort of margin of error, so we shouldn't tilt the scales against them too. No need to add to the shit situation they're already in.

[thaumaturgy]

Fantastic, I agree with everything you said and you didn't disagree with anything I said.