Blacknbengal
Well-Known Member
Despite what all those "we are family" commercials might lead you to believe, banks exist to make money, not friendships. And if a little sleight-of-hand maneuver helps the bottom line? Well, you know: Business is business.
Banks don't steal our money; most of them merely trick us into giving it to them through things like overdraft fees that can be incurred by letting you write checks, use debit cards and withdraw money from ATMs without alerting you that you are overdrawn. It's perfectly legal and quite lucrative -- overdraft fees bring in about $1.77 billion a year.
Regulations created last year to protect bank customers from being unknowingly enrolled in punitive overdraft "protection" programs appear to have failed. About 100 million Americans willingly opted in to those programs when finally given the choice, and overdraft fees remain just as steep -- averaging $35 a whack with the nation's largest banks.
You can see the cold facts by grinding through a Consumer Federation of America survey of the nation's 14 largest banks, or skim a solid nuts-and-bolts version by The Associated Press, but this sassy report by Marlys Harris of CBS MoneyWatch is a lot better reading, mostly because she uses terrific adjectives. Some excerpts:
Rest story
Banks don't steal our money; most of them merely trick us into giving it to them through things like overdraft fees that can be incurred by letting you write checks, use debit cards and withdraw money from ATMs without alerting you that you are overdrawn. It's perfectly legal and quite lucrative -- overdraft fees bring in about $1.77 billion a year.
Regulations created last year to protect bank customers from being unknowingly enrolled in punitive overdraft "protection" programs appear to have failed. About 100 million Americans willingly opted in to those programs when finally given the choice, and overdraft fees remain just as steep -- averaging $35 a whack with the nation's largest banks.
You can see the cold facts by grinding through a Consumer Federation of America survey of the nation's 14 largest banks, or skim a solid nuts-and-bolts version by The Associated Press, but this sassy report by Marlys Harris of CBS MoneyWatch is a lot better reading, mostly because she uses terrific adjectives. Some excerpts:
Rest story