overdraft fees are a joke!
Ok, so I have moved around alot and I have several bank accounts. Wachovia, B of A and USAA. I dont have overdraft protection on all 3 accounts and because of my direct deposits I use my accounts accordingly.
Here is where I get angry. I recently used my Wachovia account for a “delayed” purchase for my kickball registration. It was suppose to cost 60 bucks. Somewhere along the way I became a captain of a team instead of merely joining a preexisting team. I am not sure how the issue was brought up, but it was mentioned / read somewhere that team captains don’t have to pay the registration fee. I thought WOHOOO! and thus spent a portion of that 60 dollars from that account. Well, either A) Waka messed up and charged me incorrectly (I am waiting to hear back) or B) I was misinformed / misread on this issue. In either situation I become over drawn on my account after that 60 and those other purchases came through. A charge for 20, 3 and 10 dollars all put me over. Each of them had a $35 dollar fee attached to them plus some extra random fee of $35 with comes to a whopping $140 dollars!!!! That is RIDICULOUS! These banks are out of their damn minds. Its simple really, cards get declined all the time, if the money is not in the account DO NOT APPROVE THE TRANSACTION. But of course why would the banks work that way? They would rather let the 3 dollar charge at 7/11 go through and take out their outrageous fees than to act as a prudent financial institution.
Now please, don’t get me wrong, I do think their should be a penalty / fee for over drawing your account if funds come out on the same day or while transactions are pending, but for future transactions it should simply say DENIED. Also, the fees should be a percentage of the charge, not a flat fee. Hell I could have bought a 500 dollar dinner and still had only a 35 fee. How in earth is that fair?
I think Wachovia is taking advantage of people and it burns me up! What do they think, that we are made of Monopoly money?

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
Anna said,
August 6, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
Why don’t you just get overdraft protection? lol I use citibank and it doesn’t cost anything. Any check up to $500 they will cover, I can even go to an ATM if my bank account is empty and take that $500. Once I did, and replaced it when I got my paycheck, and the interest was only like $1.30.
I don’t trust anyone with direct withdrawal from my bank account. I’ve heard horror stories of gyms continuing to deduct money after people have ended their contract and it’s a pain to get them to stop. Or if you have one of those credit cards that comes from your checking account and your card gets stolen, it’s a hassle to refund the money.
Robert said,
August 6, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
I dont have a CC connected with Wachovia, nor a Savings account. Just a checking from when I moved a few years back. So I don’t really have that option of over draft protection.