How to Get $78 From Bank of America [overdraft class action lawsuit]

Smart Money ^ | 2009-01-26 | Kelli B. Grant

[freekitty]

I do the ATM and they tell me what funds are available.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

capital one got nailed for reporting customer balances on credit cards as their credit limit..i.e. you put $100 on your card this month, they’d report your limit as $100..

this effectively increased your debt ratio and the credit score was lowered since you were “max’d out” on the card..

they lost the suit and now report normally..

[Popman]

So great, now idiots who bounce checks are getting free money.

No, it's not free money.

I already paid them the multiple 39.00 overdraft fee because they posted the largest item first and bounced all the other ones that should have cleared.

If I spent 8.00 for lunch and $4.00 on the way home for milk on my debit card and then the next day I screwed up and forgot the check was 500.00 instead of 450.00 and it bounces that night with the other two debit charges, I get banged for all three even though I spent the money hours, sometimes days earlier.

I would be happy to pay the one fee, for the over drafted check, since it was my mistake, but that's not the way it works

[rabscuttle385]

However, there is no reason why a person should spend more money than they actually have.

The problem is that you "have" the money but you "don't"...and BofA changes the status of its money and orders transactions to maximize its fee income.

None of the other big banks did this to the level that BofA did.

[pgkdan]

bump

[MarkL]

The formula is quite simple:

Never write checks that total an amount more than the amount of cash that you have in your checking account.

Or you can run your finances by writing hot checks (stealing).

Just make sure that you've always got your deposit slips to prove when you actually made the deposits. I've been hit with NSF fees when I never actually ran low on money in my account. It wasn't with BofA, but I had to go back and show my bank that I had made a cash deposit more than 3 days before the date that the checks were processed.

Mark

[muleskinner]

You know, your the kind of knuckleheaded numbskull that gives numbskulls a bad name.

[When do we get liberated?]

yeah, a month or so ago I bought a pack of cigarettes for $4.50, but it cost me $144.50!

[muleskinner]

I am half tempted to walk into my B of A branch office and proclaim my disgust with their coporate practices and intention of moving my account to Wells Fargo.

A.P. Gianinni would fire the lot of them.

[auntyfemenist]

Not necessarily, as a previous post pointed out, you deposit $1,000 in the morning, your deposit slip shows you have a thousand, then in the afternoon use your bankcard for a $900 purchase and they count the debit before making a final post of the deposit thus charging you overdraft fees.

I don’t even own checks. I strictly use bank cards. At least if I get an over draft now, it isn’t more than one purchase because the bank card will decline after that.

I have had this happen and in that amount too. One of the things that makes me mad about banks is they hit you with big fees and act like they are punishing you for being naughty somehow, but that fact is if no one had any overdraft or NSF fees for about a week, they would all go belly up.

[EVO X]

http://www.federalreserve.gov/Pubs/regcc/regcc.htm

[diefree]

My daughter overdrew because she thought the ATM card was also a MasterCard account. The fees for overdrawing $35.00 in three transactions came to $250.00. I bitched and moaned and they dropped the fees.

ATM cards as debit cards are dangerous. They can be used without a PIN number and your account could be cleaned out. I request an ATM only, no debit.

[diefree]

I guess you never had a mortgage.

[Southbound]

Many years ago, my local home-owned (by a local family) bank was sold to a larger bank in a medium-sized city about 80 miles away from our small town. The owning family denied any and all rumors of the sale up to the week they traded their controlling interest in the local bank for a block of stock in the medium-city bank, which turned around and sold to Boatmen’s in St. Louis two weeks later, which sold to BofA some time after that. The local bank had been kiting deposits for three days or so for years, so we were kind of used to it, not knowing any better. IOW, if you had $100 in your account, and deposited a check for $500, and wrote a check on that account for $300 TWO DAYS later, you got hit with a fee (they were waiting for the check to clear, even if it was on their own bank). Ah, the good old days.

[Eagle Eye]

However, there is no reason why a person should spend more money than they actually have.

Then you failed to understand the cited examples.

[Historix]

Worked for Wells Fargo for four years going through college. When you have your first overdraft and you try to get it overturned, they will snicker like a guard at Dachau. Also, they will tell you that you are a “new account” which means you will be subjected to holds on large checks. IMHO, when it comes to checking and savings on a consumer level, small banks treat you way better. WAMU got a lot of business from WF because they simply didn’t crucify you for over-drafts and fees.

[Eagle Eye]

Already did that and moved to another bank. Been w BoA for 10 years have the last two were very frustrating.

Screw them and anyone that works for them.

[trumandogz]

Yes, the primary checking account I now use has been in existence for more than 25 years and that same account has been at five of six different bank names which at this time is at Bank of America.

The original bank was a neighborhood bank and the president of that bank lived three doors down from us when I was a kid and when I opened that account.

When the bib boys took over that bank, I knew that I no longer had a connection with the officers of my bank.

I bounced one check when I was 18 0r 19 and have never bounced a check since.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

That is why there is a sign posted at the teller window and driver thru that reads "Money deposited after 3:00 will not be posted to your account until the next business day.

And that is why they LOST this class action lawsuit. It turns out that money deposited BEFORE 3:00 PM will not be posted until the next business day, either. At least in terms of timing your payments and deposits.

False advertising, you know...

[trumandogz]

No, I did not fail to understand the cited examples and did not condone the actions of BoA. However, I have for a long time understood how they operate and would never put myself in a situation where I wrote a check that I was not 100% sure would be covered.