Did Your Bank Manipulate Your Checking Account to Charge You Overdraft Fees?
Bank overdraft lawsuits are being filed against banks that unfairly sequence their customers’ banking transactions in order to charge excessive overdraft fees. These fees - which are charged for every transaction that takes place after a bank account has a negative balance - typically vary from $25 to $35 per transaction and can end up costing customers hundreds of dollars.
Some of the nation’s biggest banks have been the subject of bank overdraft lawsuits including:
- Bank of America
- JPMorgan Chase
- Citizens Bank
- US Bancorp
- PNC Financial Services Group
- Wells Fargo & Co.
- Capital One Financial Corp
How Do Bank Customers Become Victims of Unfair Overdraft Protection Fees?
It used to be common practice for many major banks to automatically enroll customers in “overdraft protection plans” that allowed the customer to still make purchases when their balance dipped below $0.00. These protection plans automatically charged an overdraft fee of $25-$35 for every transaction made while the account had a negative balance.
Unfortunately, some banks took advantage of their checking account overdraft policies and began reordering customers’ ATM and debit card transactions so accounts would dip below $0.00 and customers could be charged for numerous small transactions, each of which would incur a separate overdraft fee.
Customers harmed by deceptive overdraft fee practices have successfully pursued class action bank overdraft lawsuits that have resulted in substantial monetary settlements. Bank of America settled an overdraft fee lawsuit for $410 million; Citizens Bank settled a similar class action lawsuit against it for $710 million.
