iembalm wrote:Go in and speak to a person. Very likely your account was automatically penalized when you went under zero (rather than a fiendish bank employee scrutinizing your account and slapping it on you). Unless you have set up a backup account for overdrafts, it probably happened automatically. If you have a good history with the bank, as you describe, just going in and asking for the penalty to be reversed will probably work.

DNA Concept wrote:Retail banking, handling the small sums of proles like ourselves, is generally seen as a dismayingly low-growth and low-profit activity for big banks, which would much prefer to be reaping huge windfalls through shifting mighty icebergs of capital and other master-of-the-universe activities. I don't know what it's like in the average Welsh high street bank, but I'd venture to guess that it's more or less what we have in North America: a dwindling number of tellers (expensive labor replaced by cheap ATMs that you still pay big fees to use), and a growing warren of cubicles filled with young grasping types offering you mutual funds, retirement schemes, mortgages, etc. If they're making any money from average customers, it's in handling investments as their existing customers get older and richer.

The divide is getting so great that some enterprising regional banks in the US are starting to specialize in retail banking, offering lower fees and better service than the larger banks. I'd guess that their profits are still coming from their customers eventually making more money and wanting to do more profitable things with it, but the outright hostility of larger banks is creating a niche for customer-oriented institutions. Credit unions have always specialized in the average customer, and have a lot more experience in not treating you like shit.

As my roommate says, asking your bank how to save more money is like asking the guy at the corner store how to quit smoking.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Ifan Saer wrote: So, basically, I had 3€ of their money for a week, and they made me pay 20€ for that.

Rick posted this back in April:

UK banks could be forced to return billions of pounds of overdraft fees to consumers after a high court judge said the fees could be challenged by the Office of Fair Trading. Mr Justice Andrew Smith agreed with the OFT that charges were covered under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation 1999. This paves the way for a further hearing in which the court will decide whether the charges are unfair and, if so, what a fair charge should be.

According to the OFT, banks receive up to £3.5bn a year in unauthorised overdraft fees - nearly £10m a day.They charge up to £39 for a bounced cheque, standing order or direct debit, and critics of the system say this does not reflect the actual cost incurred by the banks, which could be as little as £2.

Bank of America just raised the service charge for an ATM transaction by a non-customer to $3.

I'm starting to form a psychological profile of these 'bankers', but it's still in its early stages.

ifan saer wrote:Why would anyone give their money to a bank, not get much in return, but get penalised when the bank gives its money to them? I genuinely don't get this.

Ideally, the elites don't want you keep a lot of your money in bank accounts, either- the system is designed to entice you into the speculative markets, because the greater the pool of novice investor money in the markets, the more liquidity available to buy failing stocks when the elites dump their shares on the unsuspecting mutual fund investor. They want you to save for retirement in stocks, not in banks.

The central banks don't want lots of money parked in banks for other reasons- if it's not in the markets, they want it in the consumer economy. Ideally, everyone would spend every last dime they make, never save anything, and make up the rest with new debt. That's what they call perfect- and in America, they've achieved that. The US savings rate is zero or negative.

If you insist on keeping your money in a bank, you will lose money to inflation most years. It's not a way to gain wealth. Obviously, banks are set up to come out farther ahead than any Las Vegas casino, by taking their cut for using your money. I mean, obviously, if the bank paid you more on interest than what they charged on loans, banking would not be profitable.

If you bail out of the system entirely and bury your money in your backyard, you risk getting robbed, and you also risk becoming a target of an angry government. They don't like it when people opt out of their fiat/fractional reserve racket, so they'll target you for an IRS investigation or a DEA investigation, and you'll have to explain why you keep so much money around your house. A lot of people thought they were going to outsmart the banks back in the 1920's, too, when they saw the Fed devaluing the money supply like crazy. They tried to plan for this by buying gold, but that didn't work, because FDR came and took their gold and gave them even more fiat in return.

It's really hard to beat the banks, because they own the cops, the courts, the politicans, the military, the media, and pretty soon, all the air, water and food, too.

Pick a nice place on your forearm for your bar code and your chip, because digicash will narrow your options even more. No more hording of metals or paper money. You'll be on the grid full time, and who knows what the overdraft fees will be then? They'll probably sentence you to slave labor or something.

I hope that helps you understand your overdraft fees.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Ifan Saer wrote: So, basically, I had 3€ of their money for a week, and they made me pay 20€ for that.

Rick posted this back in April:

UK banks could be forced to return billions of pounds of overdraft fees to consumers after a high court judge said the fees could be challenged by the Office of Fair Trading. Mr Justice Andrew Smith agreed with the OFT that charges were covered under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation 1999. This paves the way for a further hearing in which the court will decide whether the charges are unfair and, if so, what a fair charge should be.

According to the OFT, banks receive up to £3.5bn a year in unauthorised overdraft fees - nearly £10m a day.They charge up to £39 for a bounced cheque, standing order or direct debit, and critics of the system say this does not reflect the actual cost incurred by the banks, which could be as little as £2.

Bank of America just raised the service charge for an ATM transaction by a non-customer to $3.

I'm starting to form a psychological profile of these 'bankers', but it's still in its early stages.

ifan saer wrote:Why would anyone give their money to a bank, not get much in return, but get penalised when the bank gives its money to them? I genuinely don't get this.

Ideally, the elites don't want you keep a lot of your money in bank accounts, either- the system is designed to entice you into the speculative markets, because the greater the pool of novice investor money in the markets, the more liquidity available to buy failing stocks when the elites dump their shares on the unsuspecting mutual fund investor. They want you to save for retirement in stocks, not in banks.

The central banks don't want lots of money parked in banks for other reasons- if it's not in the markets, they want it in the consumer economy. Ideally, everyone would spend every last dime they make, never save anything, and make up the rest with new debt. That's what they call perfect- and in America, they've achieved that. The US savings rate is zero or negative.

If you insist on keeping your money in a bank, you will lose money to inflation most years. It's not a way to gain wealth. Obviously, banks are set up to come out farther ahead than any Las Vegas casino, by taking their cut for using your money. I mean, obviously, if the bank paid you more on interest than what they charged on loans, banking would not be profitable.

If you bail out of the system entirely and bury your money in your backyard, you risk getting robbed, and you also risk becoming a target of an angry government. They don't like it when people opt out of their fiat/fractional reserve racket, so they'll target you for an IRS investigation or a DEA investigation, and you'll have to explain why you keep so much money around your house. A lot of people thought they were going to outsmart the banks back in the 1920's, too, when they saw the Fed devaluing the money supply like crazy. They tried to plan for this by buying gold, but that didn't work, because FDR came and took their gold and gave them even more fiat in return.

It's really hard to beat the banks, because they own the cops, the courts, the politicans, the military, the media, and pretty soon, all the air, water and food, too.

Pick a nice place on your forearm for your bar code and your chip, because digicash will narrow your options even more. No more hording of metals or paper money. You'll be on the grid full time, and who knows what the overdraft fees will be then? They'll probably sentence you to slave labor or something.

I hope that helps you understand your overdraft fees.