[GPSCC-chat] A Wet Paper Tiger -- Opt Out Of Overdraft Protection Is

[John Thielking]

The following is the thread of my discussion on Occupy Santa Cruz's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/occupysantacruz/345723425525057/?comment_id=345729452191121&notif_t=group_comment
 
John Thielking
 
 

John Thielking


Today I found out that the opt out of overdraft protection clause in my banking contract with Chase means little or nothing when it comes to actually avoiding overdrafts and overdraft fees. Thinking that my opting out of overdraft protection would prevent my checking account from being debited for charges that I didn't have the money to cover last week, I let my checking account balance go down to only $8. This week, after getting my SSDI payment from Uncle Sam, I checked my checking account balance and then my ATM statement and found that one ACH charge and one recurring debit card charge had resulted in overdrafts and overdraft fees of $34 per overdraft. I talked to an associate at a Chase branch about this and she reversed the overdraft fees since I had not been informed that overdraf
ts were still possible after opting out of overdraft protection. She informed me that ACH charges (such as paypal payments) will always go through and could result in overdrafts. Debit card charges are not supposed to go through without overdraft protection. But when I pointed out that the recurring debit card charge had gone through anyway all she could say was "contact the company making the debit and make sure they only have your debit card info and not your checking account number and routing number". What a load of bs. The company in question only has my debit card info and she should know that since the ATM statement said "recurring debit card charge". If I ever start saving aside some extra cash I will be sure to open an account at a credit union. But I figure since Chase is losing money having me as a customer, I can do more damage to them by continuing to have my SSDI and paypal account transactions occur through them and this saves me the
 trouble of rerouting those payments.

Like · ·Unfollow Post · 40 minutes ago












Thomas Equality Leavitt Overdrafts work the same way at a credit union. Some kind of regulatory nonsense.
11 minutes ago via mobile · Like








John Thielking I'm pointing this out because as I recall there was a big fight between consumers and banks to avoid overdraft fees by opting out of overdraft protection and requiring banks to make you opt in in order to get overdraft protection. It turns out that the "solution" was just another paper tiger, with less strength than a sheet of wet toilet paper...
8 minutes ago · Like








Thomas Equality Leavitt Only applies to a limited subset of fees, yes. Was very annoyed when I found out myself. Mostly affects paper checks, which almost no one uses any more... and of course, that just means they bounce and you get fees for that. can't win
3 minutes ago via mobile · Like








Thomas Equality Leavitt Not like they need to charge you these fees... every account should come with a $100 no fee credit line that is only accessible if you overdraft. Charge interest of prime plus 20%, fine.
 
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