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My nephew passed the external link to all of us in his Facebook list and I thought it was something everyone should read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/09debit.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&h
Sure we are all responsible for making sure our checking accounts are balanced and that we know how much money we have to spend, but this is ridiculous! Banks manipulating how the withdrawals and deposits are listed so they can charge you more fees? And these are not simple fees, these are outrageously high fees! It doesn't cost the bank $34 to lend you a few dollars for a few minutes (my bank charges $27), especially if they do it several times in a row like the guy in the story, who got screwed because the bank didn’t process a deposit in a timely manner. I love that part about them, they demand that you have money in your account the second a transaction comes in but if you are depositing money, they want you to want up to ten days, EVEN IF IT IS DRAWN ON THEIR BANK.
What really pissed me off is the FACT that banks make more money from these fees than they do for credit card over limit and late fees (penalty fees). What ever happened to your friendly neighborhood bank? You know the one that was there to HELP you?
27BILLION DOLLARS, just in overdraft fees, that must be why there is a branch bank for every bank in town, on every main road plus the main bank building in my town and three new ones opened in the last year.
No wonder we are poor and staying that way.
And I don't even carry cash, just my debit card.
I will offer you a way out. Open a “Sweep” savings account, keep as much in it as you can afford. When I originally opened mine (ours) it was a free service to take money from the savings account and put it in checking to cover overdrafts. WAS. Now it cost $5.00 and they do adjust the transaction so that if you have several overdrafts the transfer is put before the first one so that there is only one $5.00 fee. With the limited amount of money I (we) have to play with each month, it has come in handy several times and probably saved us several hundred dollars in overdraft fees.