Overdraft Fees

Poor wrote:

I got slammed with 200 dollars of fees when then bank shuffled all my charges. I know I can't do anything about it, but it is going to be a cold month without heat so some stories would be comforting. Has this happened to you?

A person's words are very revealing about thinking. Despite what you say later about personal responsibility, your initial post is blame shifting, passive and devoid of recognition of that you could have and should have done something active sooner to help yourself. I've never been rich, but I was poor longer than I needed to be. I entered contracts I couldn't keep and took on payments I wasn't making on time. It was a simple but painful error I made of spending more than I made.

Three things helped me greatly. First, I told any salesperson that I encountered that I didn't have the money to afford their product, but I wished them good luck with their sales that day on the people with money. You'll never get pitched again, except for the con artists who tell you it's "free," which just get me to tell them I hate free things because it never is, but the person who tells you that is always lying and I never reward liars. Pitch stops then too. Second, I closed accounts, credit cards and ended automatic withdrawal agreements, till I had one bank, two credit cards and no automatic withdrawals. Third, on one sheet, I wrote down everything I owed and totaled it. Ugliest thing I ever saw, but each paycheck, it became less. Now several years later, it's smaller than ever and will be zero in the next year (zero including paying off mortgage, paying off student loans, no personal loans, no credit card interest, etc, only utilities and property taxes and current month expenses paid now.

Put yourself in charge of your finances. Be the only person you can blame and there will be less going wrong. It's not the bank it's you, for picking the wrong one, not having enough on deposit, spending too much, etc. Till you get to the point of putting yourself in charge, rather than being a passive whiner and complainer, you will have more problems than if you were in charge.

It's also a lot less effort to spend less, have fewer accounts, in the right places, and to pay down your debts than to always be a blamer and whiner.

Good luck.

Hard News wrote:

How about taking responsibility for your own actions and quit spending money you don't have!

1) The banks are the ones charging the overdraft fees;

2) If he didn't pay then they would keep charging more fees.

Taking responsibility means standing up and speaking up about the crimes that the banks are committing.

J.R. wrote:

Taking responsibility means standing up and speaking up about the crimes that the banks are committing.

No, it does not mean that. You are just stating the case for blaming others as a kind of cause, or obligation for people to follow. Your approach condemns those who follow your advice to years more of bad experiences as a "victim," complaining endlessly and louder. Your corrupting of the simple phrase "taking responsibility" corrupts the result.

Be toughest on yourself, first. Don't open an account until you know how to keep money it in to cover your checks, debits and withdrawals. If your bank has bad practices, stop banking there before you are on the receiving end. Pick a better bank in the first place or switch sooner.

Oh, and stop blaming others when you are late for an appointment (traffic, accident on road, bad drivers, etc.). You were late because you left too late, took the road with the accident, didn't take another route, etc. The sooner things stop being other people's faults and start being yours, the less often you screw up and have bad results.

The countermeasures you are smart enough to take later are the ones you should have taken sooner. Not having done that is 100% your fault. Accept less fault than that and you are just a sucker for getting hit again, even harder.

"If you have $100......................Don't spend more than $100.

If for some retarded reason you screwed up and overspent..................Don't act like it is the Banks fault."

Now there is some real slave mentality thinking.

The Right Wing thinks is is honorable to swallow as much crap as the powers that be shovel down their throat instead of recognizing it is crap and doing something about it.

We can't afford to have fools like this among us if we are to ever improve out society.

I bank with a credit union and they also charge overdraft fees on my checking account. I learned this because the CU mistakenly doubled a charge on my account causing a couple overdrafts. The way people talk on this thread you would think this is never the case with CU's. All financial institutions need to dissuade customers from over-drafting their accounts. Painful fees are a great way to do this as evidenced by the whining of the irresponsible children above.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people cannot take responsibility for their own actions and lack the most basic skills needed to manage their bank accounts. The banks, the gov't, their parents, everyone else - these people should be watching little Johnny's account so the precious little guy doesn't over-draft. No wonder some many rushed into the arms of the authoritarian, nanny-state Obamski regime.

This just happened to me tonight! I'm very responsible, I knew my account was getting low, so I quit using my atm card, and drafted from my checking instead. Well I forgot about automatic withdrawals from iTunes, and my web host! My actual money spent was about $125. My total account balance is now -$548!!!!! I'm going into the bank tomorrow morning, to hopefully get at least a few of these fees removed. I'm just starting a small pet sitting business, and money is very tight. I hope they have some Christmas spirit...

If not I'll take my money (not very much) out. Then I'll have my parents take their three accounts (oil royalties) out. That might get their attention.

hahhaha shannon. i laugh at everytime people threaten me(a teller at a bank), that they're going to get rid of their accounts if it isnt resolved. The banks have so much more leverage than those accounts of your parents..its not even funny. Keep track of your money, and hook up your automatic subscriptions onto a credit card nub. Well at least that is what i do, so i never overdraft. Use a credit card when in doubt...or you're gonna get pwned by the man.

Wow. Less than a week after I post praising ING Direct for its no overdraft fees, I got slammed with overdraft fees with Bank of America with my business checking account.

I had the money in the savings account to cover the amount yet it didn't matter. Each and every time my check card was used the last 4 days they charged me $35. They didn't notify me or transfer the money from my savings account (which they said they will do for $10). Just kept charging me $35 a pop. They claim the service protects my name but not letting me bounce checks (these were all electronic transactions so that doesn't hold).

I got charged $35 on an .11 cent charge. I understand it's my responsibility to keep things in line but my assumption always was that if you have an electronic charge that will bring you below $0 it won't go through. Nope. Not only did they go through, they didn't notify me or anything.

ING meanwhile sends you an email every time explaining what is going on and what you will be charged. It's real clear what they are doing.

I wish ING had business checking accounts.

Here's my review of ING:

http://www.letsrun.com/2009/ingbankreview.php

Wow. A full grown man doesn't know how to balance his check book and blames other people for his problems. I give this website 4 months before Bank Of America owns it. Typical loser/liberal/victim mentality. If it's not my fault it is usually Bush's fault or some other figure dubbed "corporate greedy executive" but of course not me. I don't go to LetsRun to read about running, I go to laugh at people blaming other people for their problems, read random unnecessary insults, and observe general behavior of "letsrunites". I could do that all day for the rest of my life