Yesterday, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase Bank announced they were changing their policies to allow customers to opt out of overdraft protection. Wells Fargo decided to follow in their footsteps late yesterday, announcing a number of changes at this bank. The following changes also apply to Wachovia, the bank that was acquired by Wells Fargo several months ago.
Wells Fargo is eliminating overdraft fees if the account is overdrawn by less than $5 and are limiting overdrafts to only four per day. Customers will be allowed to opt out of overdraft protection, so they don’t incur fees but transactions that would bring their accounts below zero will be declined.
All of these changes are improvements, although I see no reason for a bank to charge more than one fee per day. Regardless of what a bank charges, customers have the responsibility to monitor their own accounts. Accidents and emergencies happen, but in the end we should all be aware of what we have in the bank. The best defense against excessive bank fees is to pay attention and give the banks no reason to charge them. Here are some tips for avoiding overdraft fees.
Wells Fargo Announces Changes to Overdraft Practices, September 23, 2009
Updated December 20, 2011 and originally published September 24, 2009. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
Rank: Platinum
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
So many posts about overdraft fees recently. I said it on another blog, and I will say it again: just be intentional about keeping tabs on your account and you should be fine!
I agree. It is totally up to the customer to know how much they have in the bank when they are charging to their cards. If it is really too much to keep track of, then pay in cash – the bills are numbered and what you see in your wallet is what you can spend, no overdraft protection required.
Ahhhh, my three most despised banks all in one post. Trust me, they will find away to extort as much money out of their customers as possible!
All the bankers should be dragged into the streets and burned. Simple as that.
I just let my Chase checking account get overdrawn by $2.00 thinking I was safe from o/d fees after hearing about the new overdraft policies. However I was still charged a $33 overdraft fee. I called to complain about but was told there was no set date to change the overdraft policy and the old one is still in place. Looks like yet another scam by Chase to get money out of its customers. Only this time they used the media to make customers think they had a $5 cushion.
Wells Fargo, while have a letter on their website stating otherwise, has yet to revise their overdraft policy.They will still charge for up 10 overdrafts no matter if they are $0.01. Once, they actually put a 60 dollar check through first, even though I had several small charges that were already pending that day, and charged me $350.00 in overdraft fees. The charges for the overdafts were for charges for small amounts under ten dollars down to $1.53.
wells fargo charge me 10 overdraft fees $350 in one day, because they made a mistake in the billpay I scheduled. But when I complainted they said it is not their fault.It has been 6 months from the time they said they will do the opt out option, But so far nothing was done about it. They are simply enjoying the middle class money.
I agree that customers should keep track of their money and I will even allow that banks should be allowed to charge a fee when an account overdrafts. What I do not accept is that overdraft fees will often be more than 10x the value of the overdraft. For $16 in overdrafts (5 small transactions) I was charged $150. That is outrageous.