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Overdrawn bank accounts and the endless fun the provide
Dulcius_ex_asperis
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my friend has overdrawn her account to the point that, even when she gets paid, she still ends up in the red. She got paid today, and she's still $400 in the red. So what can she do to get that undone?
Is calling the bank to get them to reverse charges an option? Will they even do that? She said this started two weeks ago, when she was suddenly overdrawn by $350 (thanks to the joy of overdraft fees). I can give her $200, max $300, but she is $400 deep. If she doesn't get this resolved, I don't know what she can do.
I told her to call tomorrow and talk the the branch manager and tell him/her that she can pay $200, but not $400, and to ask if they can forgive some of the overdraft fees. She makes pretty good money, but not enough to get out of this without some help somewhere.
Are there any other options? Anyone have similar experiences? Let me know.
Is calling the bank to get them to reverse charges an option? Will they even do that? She said this started two weeks ago, when she was suddenly overdrawn by $350 (thanks to the joy of overdraft fees). I can give her $200, max $300, but she is $400 deep. If she doesn't get this resolved, I don't know what she can do.
I told her to call tomorrow and talk the the branch manager and tell him/her that she can pay $200, but not $400, and to ask if they can forgive some of the overdraft fees. She makes pretty good money, but not enough to get out of this without some help somewhere.
Are there any other options? Anyone have similar experiences? Let me know.
Dulcius_ex_asperis on
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I do think she wants to get out of it, but part of the problem is that she isn't wonderful with money all the time. BuT I mean, who is?
But yeah, I will pass on the message about being polite about it. But I mean...if she deposits $200 and that leaves her $200 in the red...she will still not make enough to get out of it until she sells her car. It's just a big, convoluted mess that could easily be fixed by $500 that no one has.
I wouldn't loan her anything. Tell her to cash her check, not deposit it, and start putting money towards the overdraft, while NOT USING HER BANK ACCOUNT ANY MORE. If she has bills to pay and needs to write checks, she can go to the post office and buy money orders with cash.
Also, it's not the bank "keeping her in the red", it's her not knowing how to live on a budget. The best thing you can do for her isn't to give her money, as you'll probably never see it again, but to convince her to get it together financially.
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I mean, I've certainly been in the position where being $17 overdrawn resulted in $96 in overdraft fees (no exaggeration!) Banks can be real dicks when they see the opportunity.
So, have your friend go in, pick a gullible guy, give him a sob story about bla-bla whatever and most likely they will fix it for you. I recommend going in person, calling will not be much help as the person on the phone will likely not care and you're not sitting in front of them.
It will especially help if it was the first time this has happened with this bank.
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
The problem is that might not be the case. It's possible that a deposit didn't clear or something in time, resulting in several pre-made payments hitting the account with too little money and resulting in a series of overdraw fees. If this is the case, you can sometimes get the bank to cancel all but the first fee, but they may not.
$20.00
$37.00
$45.00
$5.00
$60.00
$410.00 (lets say this is rent)
instead of debiting your account in order of transaction they do it by largest to smallest. They end up "covering" the same amount for your over drafts (in this case $77) but they slam you with 4 over drafts instead of 1
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
That exact thing happend to me a few weeks ago and it's total bullshit. They say it's because your larger transactions are "more important" so they cover those first, but they're obviously going to cover them all either way. They process the large ones first on purpose so they can do exactly this sort of thing.
My bank also did lovely stuff like overdrafting me for the ATM withdrawl that actually put me under 0, and then overdrafting me again for the 1.50 charge for using an ATM that wasn't operated by my bank.
Anyway, long story short - My employer had a payroll tangle that kept me from getting paid on the day i was supposed to. Rent check cleared along with a couple other things, and since they were nice enough to process the rent check first, I ended up with about 210 dollars in overdrafts for being about 30 dollars negative.
I went to my bank, talked to a personal banker, politely expressed my seething irritation, and all but 1 overdraft was forgiven.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Sure, it sucks, but this is just because that's how the system is set up. The ATM withdrawal is a separate transaction from the ATM fee. The automated system does the withdrawal, hits you with an overdraft fee, then does the 1.50 fee, and hits you with another overdraft because it's a separate transaction. It's not like a person is sitting at the bank saying "how can I screw over Erandus today... I know, I'll charge him an extra overdraft fee for his extra transaction." For situations like this I suspect that most banks, like yours, would be understanding if you politely explain the issue.
If on the other hand you withdraw money and are overdrawn, then two days later withdraw some more money they're going to be much less likely to care because you should be paying attention.
Seriously, the fees may be excessive, but that's just more incentive to keep track of your balance. It's not the bank's job to tell you when you shouldn't spend money. They're not your parents. They're in a business to make money, they lay out the rules for your account, and the penalties if you don't follow them.
Yay for cash!
The demon code prevents me from declining a rockoff challenge.
Not everyone who overdrafts is an irresponsable jackoff who doesn't know what their balance was. I normally get paid the same day - almost the same hour - every week. One week my employer had a mixup in their payroll system and I didn't get paid until a couple days later than normal, and I ended up with overdrafts. I explained that to my bank, and also explained that I was very upset that small things like 1.50 ATM fee and two 99 cent fees from the post office for doing change of addess online ended up costing me over 200 dollars. Aside from the 20 dollars I took out of the ATM, I literally had less than 10 dollars of transactions cost me about 200 dollars in overdrafts.
I didn't ask for all the money back either. I explained the situation with my pay, told him he was most welcome to look at my acount history and see how my pay checks have regularly been put in my acount the same day for the last 2 years, notice how this week was suddenly different, and that I was upset at the way it was handled. He offered to clear all but one of the fees, the atm withdrawl that I really was directly responsable for, and I accepted.
The moral of the story is, yes, banks will try to put it in your pooper because they assume that most people don't think there's anything they can do about it, they're stuck with these fees, and their only option is to suck it up and accept it. Complaining cannot hurt you in these situations. What's the bank going to do? Take more of your money for telling them you don't like their overdraft fees? Kick you out?
They set up these fees because they assume most people won't fight them. It's amazing how easy it is to get them removed when you do.
I refer you to the case of Mattress vs. House-fire.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I understand what you mean, but still...
The demon code prevents me from declining a rockoff challenge.
Consider yourself lucky because you got that person on a good day or she recognized your face.
I was a teller and let me tell you sob stories are a dime a dozen. When we say, "let me go in the back and talk to my manager" we usually tell our co-workers your sob story and laugh about it.
All I have to do look at you transaction history to see where you've spent your money. Some got a legitimate case and some like starbucks too much.
@OP
It is a good idea to go inside a bank and talk to a manager or assistant manager. They can give your friend some options and maybe reverse a few of the charges. The best thing she could at that time is not come off as bitchy. She needs to come in with a detailed plan consisting of when and how she is gonna bring her balance to the positive. That will convince them that she is at least making an attempt and not bullshitting them. That will put her leap and bounds above the usual riff-raff that come in.
I would also tell your friend to stop any automatic bills she may have coming in. That will only rack up more charges. If she stays negative for a while see might be charged a periodic overdraft charge. Also figure out when her monthly account fee charges(if any) come in because that will trigger an overdraft charge as well.
Happened to my friend recently. He bought a house, and in the first week it burned down and he didn't have insurance yet either.
He lost over 12k in cash because he didn't trust the bank.
The prosecution rests your honor.
If you don't like the idea of a full on bank, try going with a smaller Credit Union or at least purchasing a third party safety deposit box or buying a fireproof safe.
Its one of those damed if you do, might get burned if you don't situations....:|
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Let's stay on topic. The question is about what to do in this situation. It's not everyone whine about how bad banks are. Most of your posts have contributed at least something in the way of an explanation or some advice but let's leave some of the chest thumping out of it.
If nothing else you should be able to insist to the bank that they process your debits in the chronological order that they occurred. Barring all other options, requesting that of the bank manager isn't the worst last resort of all time.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Just as a sidenote to matthasaproblem... I have no problem with lending her money. I've lent her a bit in the past and she has never failed to repay me. She has done the same for me. This really is just one of those cases of the bank being lame and charging overdraft fees x1000000.
I will see if she can talk to someone about getting the charges reordered from smallest to largest, at the very least. And I'll let her know to cancel any automatic payments from now on, and about not depositing her paycheck. Thanks for all the helpful hints, guys.