How Banks Work (#15 in a Series: Chase Debit Cards)
"Your Chase Checking account has a feature called Chase Debit Card Overdraft CoverageSM. Soon, we can no longer provide this coverage automatically – if you want to keep it, you need to tell us." Aww, you can no longer provide it? Well… okay!
What's that, you say?
"With Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage, we may approve everyday debit card transactions for you, at our discretion, when you don't have sufficient available funds. This may include times when funds from your deposit are not available or when you cannot make a deposit until later that same business day." ["Are not available" = "we're using your money." "May" = "may"!]
DO GO ON.
"We will charge an insufficient funds/overdraft fee of $34 each time we pay an overdraft created by check, ACH, in-person withdrawal, debit card transaction or other electronic means. We will charge a returned item fee of $34 for any check or ACH transaction that is returned because your account had insufficient funds. The most you would pay is three fees per day for insufficient funds or returned items, no matter the number of transactions." [So, if one accidentally overdrafts, not noticing, and makes multiple purchases, one will rack up $102.]
• "Also, each time your account is overdrawn for 5 consecutive business days, we will charge you an additional $15." [Does that include day one? Does that make it $117? Unclear!]
• "Once an overdraft has occurred, you are obligated to bring your account to a positive balance promptly." [VAGUE! How soon is promptly?]
• "Whether your overdraft will be paid is at Chase's discretion, and we reserve the right not to pay. For example, we typically do not pay overdrafts if your account is not in good standing, or you are not making regular deposits, or you have had excessive overdrafts." [Strangely not vague actually!]
• "If you have sufficient funds available under Chase Overdraft Protection, funds will automatically be transferred from your Chase savings account, credit card or home equity line of credit (except Texas) to cover your overdraft purchases. Chase Overdraft Protection may be subject to a credit approval. Fees may apply, including a $10 transfer fee." [That costs a bank $10 to do? Gosh, it must be expensive running a bank.]
• "Whether you have Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage on your checking account will not affect how we treat your recurring debit card transactions (such as a gym membership). In particular, we may, at our discretion, authorize and pay a recurring debit card transaction that causes an overdraft and charge an insufficient funds/overdraft fee even if you do not maintain Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage on your account." [I'm sorry, you what now? So... having a debit card actually autoenrolls one in overdraft coverage for recurring payments? Then why am I reading all of this and now opting out???]
Because, right: NO THANK YOU.
"We want you to fully understand the potential consequences of removing Chase Debit Card Overdraft Coverage from your account so you can make sure this decision is right for you."
Well, I was pretty sure already that I didn't want it? But heck! I would like to fully understand!
"Removing your coverage means:
* Everyday debit card purchases will be denied if you don't have sufficient funds." [That sounds reasonable! It being a DEBIT CARD and all!]
* "You may need to make sufficient deposits in advance so that everyday debit card purchases get approved." [Right, you will continue to hold deposits for between 3 and 5 business days and do things with my money until eventually someone makes that illegal, that's fine, I expect no better from a bank.]
* "If you don't have sufficient funds in your account, or available under Overdraft Protection, you will not be able to use your debit card." [Right, because it's... a debit card! Not a Chase Gets to Charge Lots of Fees card! Or... IS IT?]
This is why I bury all my money in tin cans in the backyard.
This is pretty much So Everywhere anymore. Essentially they're [REQUIRED BY FASCIST MARXIST BLACK NON-CITIZEN REGIME] now obligated to send you a smeary-print letter telling you the ways they've been jerking you this way and that all along, and they plan to continue on their merry path unless you say STOP NOW.
Frankly, they'd LOVE anyone to continue this "protection," because these "processing fees" and/or whatever they really are (shhh. . .income for doing diddly poo) are a major leg of the leather chair.
Coupla other things? That part you said wasn't vague? TOTALLY vague, but who the fuck's gonna stop it? And, they technicalityly aren't really "using your money" if your check's not cleared the drawer's bank yet–I mean, they're not sposed to. Wonder what they actually do?
I have TD Bank and they did the same thing this past summer, without notifying me, and when I went to check my balance… whoo boy.
How many times did I have to go in and tell them to remove me from this?
Four.
Four times.
As an absorbed WaMu customer I feel as though I was entitled to a version of this notice comprehensible to an incredibly stoned Seattleite.
FULLY AGREED!
As a ditto, I have read and re-read this VERY CAREFULLY and concluded the real message is the following: we at Chase hate you and your grandfathered-in free checking accounts. We wish to find an effective way to shaft you. If you agree to *pay* us to shaft you in the way most convenient for us, we can call it consensual and everybody wins.
@RamonaRanchera You're language parsing skills are far better than mine–I just ripped the thing up and threw it away. But I figured it was basically a fuck you to WaMu clients.
Is there any other kind of Seattleite anymore, really?
There are some class action law suits out there with people trying to get back their fees. I doubt they will. But the line between "debit" and "credit" cards really got blurred when they let you spend money you didn't have then hit you with a gigantic fee.
Overdrafts are easy to get in England, just ring up the bank to tell them you're a bit short this month so could they cover some checks you wrote until you have the money and as long as you have money coming in regular they say "yes". You can get a permanent overdraft limit too.
Having no idea how banks in this country worked when I moved here I actually tried that:
"Hello, I just paid my rent and realized I'm going to be $100 short until I get paid next week so can you cover the check when it comes in?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just asking for a $100 overdraft for a week"
"Do you have a credit card we can debit the money from?"
"No"
"So you're asking us to lend you a $100?"
"Um…."
End of conversation.
Are you serious? This happens in England?
Neil: Well, basically, I want to ask him if I can have, like, an extension on my overdraft, but I know there must be a better way of putting it than that.
Mike: Well, what about, "Give me some more money"?
Vyvyan: …"You bastard!"
God bless The Young Ones.
Can you imagine the embarrassment of being declined because of insufficient funds? What if you couldn't cover the $700 for an ipad? Life ruined!
When I was a waitress, I was never sure how to tell people they were declined. Usually I said that 'this card isn't *working*, do you have another one?' and most of the time people got it.
I had a stupid US Bank credit card that would always get frozen whenever I used it out of state, and it would get declined at embarrassing places like the corner liquor store or Victoria's Secret.
I'm assuming those two stops were on the same outing?
If only by default, because I stop by the liquor store daily for one reason or another. And to clarify: embarrassing places to have a card declined, not in "general." I don't want Heidi Klum cease-and-desisting my avatar.
Yes there are so MANY reasons to drop by the liquor store.
I know hundreds.
This is nothing, though. You should see the tricks that banks pull with reordering and clearing transactions to maximize fees (including the ordering of cash deposits on the back end of everything). They have so much discretion on this that it's almost impossible to keep a checkbook balanced if you use a debit card regularly. And they know this. And they want to screw you with it.
That's what I was going to say – they order everything from the highest to the lowest so that they can ding you a hundred bucks for a $2.99 transaction!
True, London Lee, but have you noticed how stingy English banks are when it comes to paying interest on a savings ("deposit") account? That's probably because there's only about two of them, as opposed to 16,000 in the US. Also, in my own unhappy experience, if you leave money with them a long time they sort of forget you had an account and you have to fight tooth and nail just to get your money back.
Yeah, I love my 0.3% at Bank of America. Competition rules.
Well, at least there is a limit of 3 overdraft fees at Chase. I had a splendid experience with Wells Fargo back at Christmas where my deposit didn't post on a Friday and EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TRANSACTION overdrafted because their policy is to take out the smallest transaction first and then work up to the big ones so that they can slap you with as many fees as possible.
So for every coffee shop drop in, clearance sale dollar item, etc. I paid an extra 35 fucking dollars, to the tune of over $400 total in fees. Whew, glad to get that off my chest!
WOW. I hope you went into your bank and just started screaming until you were escorted out, because that's what would have happened to me.
I've found curiously enough that while going INTO the bank does fuck all, people on the customer service phone line are much more helpful and I can usually get at least two fees refunded every time as a 'final courtesy.'
It'll be a 'final courtesy' when I'm deep in the cold ground.
Yowza. I've definitely been hit with 4 in one day before: I've never heard there was a limit. Luckily it was demonstrably not my fault so I threw all sense of embarrassment out the window and went in and yelled until they took all the charges off.
Yes, essentially, screaming combined with sobs.
It was also fun explaining to my mom that I was unable to contribute to any family holiday activities and could we please not share it with the rest of the family.
Oh, they dropped ONE FEE. Fuckers.
Sorry, pattycakes! We had the same thing happen once and called up the bank to ask why the hell they didn't automatically transfer money from our money market fund to cover the temporary shortfall in checking.
Well, apparently that's a special service that costs $3 a month, that's why. Even though both accounts have the same name and are at the same bank. Fuckers.
B of A has, or at least had, no limit. Had a similar thing happen, except even more $. 20 fees in a day and a half, despite giving them way more than enough to cover any issues as soon as overdraft #1 happened. AND having sufficient funds in a second, back-up account which was supposed to be linked for JUST THAT REASON. Wasn't linked. Wouldn't link. Assholes.
Wells Fargo is an evil, nasty, evil, deceitful, reprehensible, evil, recalcitrant, cruel, dispassionate (did i mention EVIL?) marble shithouse of a banking edifice. They can take their ye olde stagecoach and run it off the cliffs at Big Sur.
Can I just say a word in favor of CREDIT UNIONS? Our CU will happily feed money from our savings account, or, yes, even our home equity line of credit (this must be the "using your house as an ATM" I've heard about) if you overdraw your checking account — without charging some bullshit $10 "transfer fee," or indeed any fees of any sort, ever.
Seriously, every time someone bitches about a bank, you should direct them to set up an account in a credit union post-haste. They even offer marginally better savings interests than banks (at this point that means like 0.5 percent APR instead of 0.25 percent, but still). It used to be that you had to be a member of some class in order to join a specific CU — we're in the one run by the university where my wife got her master's degree, for instance — but these days there are CUs that will just take anyone off the street in most big cities!
Yes Credit Unions! I still have a Credit Union account in Vermont and they are SO NICE and I think I'm connected to some stock pool because MONEY JUST SHOWS UP IN MY ACCOUNT periodically!
STRONGLY AGREE.
But the online banking for Credit Unions tends to be really pathetic. I have one and since I'm incapable of writing checks to pay bills I end up primarily using my real bank. I keep telling myself that if I ever need a loan I'll go to the credit union.
Agreed. I would love to use my credit union as my primary bank, but … QUARTERLY PAPER STATEMENTS? Um, no.
jfruh, using your house as an ATM means taking out HELOC so you can buy a 72 inch HD flat screen TV for each room in you house in addition to all new furniture. Every short sale on the market I see has both.
C_Webb, it depends on the CU. I have 2 CU accounts, one is monthly and one is quarterly but that is just a savings account. When I used their checking services I received monthly statements.
My CU also has decent online banking, though I never use it 'coz I LOVE WRITING ME SOME CHECKS! (It's a sickness.)
My CU was great until it was seized by the NCUA (FDIC for CUs) and sold to another shittier CU.
I am also a huge fan of credit unions! There is just something so reassuring about knowing who is responsible for what and being able to talk to them in person if there is ever a problem. And of the three credit unions I have banked with, only one had janky online banking (it seemed like I could only log on during business hours?!), but it was a pretty small bank in East Harlem.
Lastly, a NYC credit union fun fact: there are no-fee ATMs in every (?!) McDonald's.
So all the banks were forced to do this because of the CARD Act – what makes this 'optional' service doubly fun is that now, when you call to activate a new card, the phone operator will strong-arm you into agreeing to enroll in this Shylock service. Even if you know the pitch is coming, it's not phrased as a question, but merely something to 'confirm'.
This kind of shit is the reason why people continue to use payday lending
They just rob you on the front end, instead of the back.
They're banks, people. They NEED that money. Or else they'll go under. So pay up.
http://solari.com/campaign/HowToFindLocalBank.htm
Why are you still at Chase? Sorry, but I have to judge you on this. You might as well get your groceries at Seven-Eleven and then write a post about how shocked you are that your food has preservatives in it.
Two words: Online banking.
I can't tell you how many forty dollar cups of coffee this racket cost me, 'til I cancelled it.
Ha, I somehow missed this announcement, and when I logged into my online account, there it was, waiting for me to agree to it. Of course, I said hell no.
These overdraft charges are the reason stock prices for the bank stocks are up– way up!
USAA banking for the win. Suck it Chase.
Love Love Love USAA. It is the anti-bank.
my bank never wants to cuddle after
I switched to a credit union, and connected a Paypal account with a debit card for that, and pay myself an "allowance" from my bank account once a week. But then part of the reason I switched is because I realized that all this debit card and online banking "convenience" wasn't really healthy for me, and the ease of withdrawal was only compounded by the relative difficulty of making deposits at my old bank (which now charges non-account holders $5 to honor checks drawn on them).
"Right, you will continue to hold deposits for between 3 and 5 business days and do things with my money until eventually someone makes that illegal, that's fine, I expect no better from a bank."
THANK YOU. You took this entire post right from my angry, angry head.