FYI, for those that are from the US. Many mid size US banks will reemburse your account for a certain number of out of system ATM withdrawals each month . Also, many Credit Unions charge far fewer fees than Banks.
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Re: ATM and overdraft fees top $6 billion at the big 3 banks
This is pretty shocking, makes loan sharks look like amateurs.
"The CFPB study notes that if someone borrowed $24 for only three days and paid an overdraft fee of $34, that "loan" from the bank would carry a whopping 17,000% annual percentage rate."
A couple years ago I went to Banamex to pay my taxes by check, I asked the teller how much was in my account? She said I had to go to the services window to get that information. Not wanting to get into that line then start over in the teller line I took a chance and wrote the check. She told me there was not sufficient funds and charged my account $900 pesos on the spot!
I wonder what their overcharge and not sufficient funds are on credit cards? I imagine pretty steep. When I use the machine at the bank it is pretty common to see locals trying to get money out and walk away empty handed, hopefully they are not being charged each time they check to see if someone has deposited the money they are expecting.
Also note able "America's big three banks made over $5.1 billion last year from overdraft fees alone". This is what politicians should be focusing on more than ATM fees, I bet it would get a lot of votes from the poor.
"The typical overdraft fee is $34, yet a CFPB study found that the majority of overdrafts occur on transactions of $24 or less".
This article is based on analysis by SNL Financial and CNNMoney. There is also a link to The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I looked for the database but couldn't find it. I would like to run an analysis that breaks down the overdraft charges by the average balance in the account so I could see who is paying the most, probably those with the least. I would imagine that the overcharges also spike when the lotto gets into the hundreds of millions. Sad on sad.
Recently I watched this documentary called The Human Face on Big Data, now if the average person can just get access to the databases so we can do whatever analysis we want, that would balance things out some.