I had an experience with banks that still pisses me off. I wrote a check for my niece that the bank said I had insufficient funds for so she could not cash it. I knew I had enough since I had deposited cash there the week before. Why insufficient? My pension check I had also deposited. They claimed that because that pension had not yet cleared they withdrew that amount from my balance. I could see maybe not adding that amount in my total but not withdrawing that pension amount. But also ... they don't think the state of Pennsylvania (excuse me, commonwealth) was good for that check? I went down to that branch with fire in my eyes and demanded to speak to whoever was in charge. Turned out to be a kid I taught who then had the job of calming me down and reversing things so my check cleared. It was a local bank , the South Side Bank, which was started by a woman ... that is well over 150 years old now, and now has had its name changed via mergers, so I guess he could change rules.
"...I have fairly severe ADHD ... and also because, frankly, I was too scared to look at my bank balance when I was broke because I just wanted to feel like everything was fine."
This was me when I was younger. And now, I still live with the learned behaviors of that time of my life. I chronically refuse to look at my bank account. I get heartburn every time I log in. I assume everything is fine. (It usually is, these days, because I'm far more responsible and in a better financial position than I used to be.) It always amazes me that some people just *know* what's in their account at any given time.
Real easy fix for that is offering savings and checking accounts through the post office at a nonprofit rate, or opening up restricted credit unions like Navy Federal to everyone. Fuck banks and their "need" to make a profit off money-lending to poor people. Also, however did banks manage to operate when overdraft fees were like $3 a pop in the '80s? They made lower profits and had lower stock prices, that's how, because they were just highly regulated banks providing a service and not gambling casinos.
"how will banks make up the lost revenue?" begs the question. That isn't "lost" revenue -- it's just revenue that, due to their greed, believed that they are owed.
Just like a casino believes all the money in your pocket is legitimately "theirs" the moment you walk in.
Poor Megan. Bless her heart. She's not the brightest bulb in the wingnut Koch-funded workforce. The Post uses her to enshrine in the permanent record how dumb so-called "conservatives" are. Megan has never had an original idea in her life. She's a copyist. A typist, at best. Just laugh at her and pat her on the head. Her dimwit spouse, Peter Suderman, takes handouts from a magazine for sadsack libertarians., so she's got her some health insurance!
After my parents cut me off while I was in college (whole 'nother story) overdraft fees were sinking me. It was super-stressful to be having to study while broke. OD fees at Bank of Apartheid kept going up and up. IIRC didn't Obama pass laws that keep banks from taking your biggest check and cashing it first, so that all those that come behind would be liable for OD fees? Also I think during his terms he got retailers to let people know if their accounts were dry before running the card and potentially incurring OD fees. My understanding is they have to let the person know in case they want to put some things back, or pay with cash.
This ivory tower, “let them eat cake” op-ed doesn’t seem designed to sway popular opinion it’s just supposed to show the wealthy, well-connected financiers and advertisers that the WaPo op-ed page has got their back.
Megan belongs to no elite, unless there's a SEAL team for unoriginal, right-wing thinking, headed by David Brooks and Max Boot. She literally takes money from the Koch outfit to peddle their disinformation. Maybe she can get a seat at the table in the next Trump cabinet.
The thing is this: at one point handling money cost money. Because the bank had to HANDLE it. And process overdrafts, and collect fees, and do a bunch of stuff with real people. Now many of those processes are automatic, so the cost is negligible. The most one could say is that there is lost revenue for the time period someone’s account is overdrawn, because the bank can’t invest that money.
But again, automation could solve that: for the period the account is overdrawn, the bank’s gonkulator calculates the lost interest the bank could be earning. Then it charges that as a fee to the account. Fair and equitable, and I guarantee for small accounts it would be pennies, since consumer banks make their money on volume.
I too went through the experience as a young woman. I had the money but it didn't transfer fom my bank in the mountains (same bank, btw) to pay the overdraft, and by the time I transferred money the overdraft hit again. I remember the charges were 20 dollars then and just kept hitting over and over. I've been fortunate that I have not been in that situation since (it has been 40 years). But, from that I know the hole started and I couldn't dig my way out and the bank could give no sympathy or concern. Obviously they need those 20 dollars (times many) than I did, a young, failed loser.
I also have severe ADHD in addition to an anxiety disorder, married to a man with ADD and *severe* financial anxiety. We woke up one morning in the late aughts $1250 in the hole the exact same way. That was an entire mortgage payment. I don’t even remember what we did to get by that month, but I got obsessive about checking the account multiple times a day (my husband, OTOH, STILL can’t check the account, like 15 years and a whole lot more financial stability later and he’s still asking me if he got paid). IIRC, *one* of the settlement checks we got from Wells Fargo was because they had purposefully arranged the charges to go through in a way that would maximize the overdraft fees.
(It is possible that I’m remembering this incorrectly and that was just my *theory* but that they weren’t *actually* doing it).
Ah, the tough life of someone who has never had to lift a finger.
I've been more fortunate than most people but there's been times where I had to take a really shitty job because at least it *was* a job. (Personal advice: don't rage-quit in the middle of a recession.)
I call bullshit on this article. Back in 2020 I got hit with a triple whammy. My car finally died on me, I was starting a new job and my credit had fallen off a cliff. I begged Chase Bank to help me out and just knock off the bank fees and let me keep my account active. I arranged a repayment plan and everything. Their response? Nope we need all 857$. Period. Up until that point I’d never even bounced a check and I had that account a decade. So they closed my account. Recently I got something in the mail from Chase. Those sonsabitches tell me they’d love to have my business back (I guess they heard about my raise and job promotion?) and they could take $200 off my debt and I could pay it over three pay periods. So basically, they could erase the overdraft fees and put me in a payment plan like I asked them to do four goddamn years ago!
Personally I believe the should do away with fractional reserve banking. It should be criminal. Currently pursuing independent litigation with ten years of records against my last bank for unjust fees. They closed an account that should have been my emergency funds. Over the past few years they slowly drained it with fees I was unaware of because I wasn't using the card. Why should there be a $6 monthly fee for leaving money in an account. Then an over draft caused by the fee.
I had an experience with banks that still pisses me off. I wrote a check for my niece that the bank said I had insufficient funds for so she could not cash it. I knew I had enough since I had deposited cash there the week before. Why insufficient? My pension check I had also deposited. They claimed that because that pension had not yet cleared they withdrew that amount from my balance. I could see maybe not adding that amount in my total but not withdrawing that pension amount. But also ... they don't think the state of Pennsylvania (excuse me, commonwealth) was good for that check? I went down to that branch with fire in my eyes and demanded to speak to whoever was in charge. Turned out to be a kid I taught who then had the job of calming me down and reversing things so my check cleared. It was a local bank , the South Side Bank, which was started by a woman ... that is well over 150 years old now, and now has had its name changed via mergers, so I guess he could change rules.
"...I have fairly severe ADHD ... and also because, frankly, I was too scared to look at my bank balance when I was broke because I just wanted to feel like everything was fine."
This was me when I was younger. And now, I still live with the learned behaviors of that time of my life. I chronically refuse to look at my bank account. I get heartburn every time I log in. I assume everything is fine. (It usually is, these days, because I'm far more responsible and in a better financial position than I used to be.) It always amazes me that some people just *know* what's in their account at any given time.
Real easy fix for that is offering savings and checking accounts through the post office at a nonprofit rate, or opening up restricted credit unions like Navy Federal to everyone. Fuck banks and their "need" to make a profit off money-lending to poor people. Also, however did banks manage to operate when overdraft fees were like $3 a pop in the '80s? They made lower profits and had lower stock prices, that's how, because they were just highly regulated banks providing a service and not gambling casinos.
"how will banks make up the lost revenue?" begs the question. That isn't "lost" revenue -- it's just revenue that, due to their greed, believed that they are owed.
Just like a casino believes all the money in your pocket is legitimately "theirs" the moment you walk in.
Poor Megan. Bless her heart. She's not the brightest bulb in the wingnut Koch-funded workforce. The Post uses her to enshrine in the permanent record how dumb so-called "conservatives" are. Megan has never had an original idea in her life. She's a copyist. A typist, at best. Just laugh at her and pat her on the head. Her dimwit spouse, Peter Suderman, takes handouts from a magazine for sadsack libertarians., so she's got her some health insurance!
The '"sadsack" libertarians as opposed to ... ?
After my parents cut me off while I was in college (whole 'nother story) overdraft fees were sinking me. It was super-stressful to be having to study while broke. OD fees at Bank of Apartheid kept going up and up. IIRC didn't Obama pass laws that keep banks from taking your biggest check and cashing it first, so that all those that come behind would be liable for OD fees? Also I think during his terms he got retailers to let people know if their accounts were dry before running the card and potentially incurring OD fees. My understanding is they have to let the person know in case they want to put some things back, or pay with cash.
" frankly, I was too scared to look at my bank balance when I was broke because I just wanted to feel like everything was fine."
i was there too once...maybe twice
I haven't, but at least I took Empathy 101.
Same here.
This ivory tower, “let them eat cake” op-ed doesn’t seem designed to sway popular opinion it’s just supposed to show the wealthy, well-connected financiers and advertisers that the WaPo op-ed page has got their back.
Megan belongs to no elite, unless there's a SEAL team for unoriginal, right-wing thinking, headed by David Brooks and Max Boot. She literally takes money from the Koch outfit to peddle their disinformation. Maybe she can get a seat at the table in the next Trump cabinet.
Maybe. But does she hate trans kids enough?
Does it pay well enough? She can be flexible.
The thing is this: at one point handling money cost money. Because the bank had to HANDLE it. And process overdrafts, and collect fees, and do a bunch of stuff with real people. Now many of those processes are automatic, so the cost is negligible. The most one could say is that there is lost revenue for the time period someone’s account is overdrawn, because the bank can’t invest that money.
But again, automation could solve that: for the period the account is overdrawn, the bank’s gonkulator calculates the lost interest the bank could be earning. Then it charges that as a fee to the account. Fair and equitable, and I guarantee for small accounts it would be pennies, since consumer banks make their money on volume.
Upvote for the Hogan's Heroes reference.
What makes the Duchess of Sussex an expert on US bank overdraft issues? No wonder the Brits were so gungho for Megxit!
I too went through the experience as a young woman. I had the money but it didn't transfer fom my bank in the mountains (same bank, btw) to pay the overdraft, and by the time I transferred money the overdraft hit again. I remember the charges were 20 dollars then and just kept hitting over and over. I've been fortunate that I have not been in that situation since (it has been 40 years). But, from that I know the hole started and I couldn't dig my way out and the bank could give no sympathy or concern. Obviously they need those 20 dollars (times many) than I did, a young, failed loser.
Have had similar sucky times. They reversed the order I charged things one day to maximize the over draft fees.
Fuckers. Left that bank and that’s all they got.
I remember now they charged my overdraft before they credited my account from transfer the same day. I couldn't catch up!!
I also have severe ADHD in addition to an anxiety disorder, married to a man with ADD and *severe* financial anxiety. We woke up one morning in the late aughts $1250 in the hole the exact same way. That was an entire mortgage payment. I don’t even remember what we did to get by that month, but I got obsessive about checking the account multiple times a day (my husband, OTOH, STILL can’t check the account, like 15 years and a whole lot more financial stability later and he’s still asking me if he got paid). IIRC, *one* of the settlement checks we got from Wells Fargo was because they had purposefully arranged the charges to go through in a way that would maximize the overdraft fees.
(It is possible that I’m remembering this incorrectly and that was just my *theory* but that they weren’t *actually* doing it).
No, they did that. But I think not anymore cuz Obama or Warren or something.
I am okay if Megan paid everyone's bank fees. She seems to love the banks so much.
Maybe she should start a charitable organization to look after the poor banks. They didn't MEAN to cause the 2008 credit default crash.
Love? She has no idea what she's talking about.
Ahh, Jane Gault strikes again!
https://www.mediaite.com/online/wapo-hiring-megan-mcardle-is-their-worst-move-since-supporting-the-iraq-war/
Ah, the tough life of someone who has never had to lift a finger.
I've been more fortunate than most people but there's been times where I had to take a really shitty job because at least it *was* a job. (Personal advice: don't rage-quit in the middle of a recession.)
I call bullshit on this article. Back in 2020 I got hit with a triple whammy. My car finally died on me, I was starting a new job and my credit had fallen off a cliff. I begged Chase Bank to help me out and just knock off the bank fees and let me keep my account active. I arranged a repayment plan and everything. Their response? Nope we need all 857$. Period. Up until that point I’d never even bounced a check and I had that account a decade. So they closed my account. Recently I got something in the mail from Chase. Those sonsabitches tell me they’d love to have my business back (I guess they heard about my raise and job promotion?) and they could take $200 off my debt and I could pay it over three pay periods. So basically, they could erase the overdraft fees and put me in a payment plan like I asked them to do four goddamn years ago!
That means you're just like most people.
Jamie Dimon. $56,000,000/ year salary.
Makes you wanna beat him with a sack full of oranges, right? 56 million a year to do what?! Oh the humanity!
Fuck them, right? How generous of them
Exactly!
Personally I believe the should do away with fractional reserve banking. It should be criminal. Currently pursuing independent litigation with ten years of records against my last bank for unjust fees. They closed an account that should have been my emergency funds. Over the past few years they slowly drained it with fees I was unaware of because I wasn't using the card. Why should there be a $6 monthly fee for leaving money in an account. Then an over draft caused by the fee.