Unquestionably OVER charging for over drafts

Same thing happened to me almost..
The money was in there, I made 8 small charges, less than $10. Then
they processed an IRS payment 2 days early. Guess who got their money
first....IRS and all of my charges that were made with money in the
bank were all rejected. They get away with this legally, they call it
high low bank clearing. And they are supposed to tell you they do
this, but they lied to me about it. I can show you 4 years of bank
statements from them that prove they clear the biggest checks first.
To generate revenue....or as it really is..........theivery

I think you are very lucky they did not charge you an overdraft fee
for each of the "6 or 7 purchases under $10" you made. Most banks
would.

Here's an idea...everytime you swipe your magic little debit card
write the amount you spent down in your check register and subtract it
from your available balance. When your check register says you have
no money or have run your account "low" STOP swiping your debit card.
Be an adult. It's time.

I made a bunch of small purchases last week, and when I went to check
my balance, I saw I was charged $39 for 6 separate overdrafts! But
wait! Here is where our stories take very different directions: I
immediately realized that these 6 overdraft charges were ALL MY FAULT,
and MY RESPONSIBILITY to take care of, not my banks. If you can't be
bothered to keep track of your balance and what has/has not gone
through, shut up and pay the overdraft charges: You earned 'em.

In Friday's newspaper, there was a VERY interesting article on this,
and how the banking industry has no plans to fix it so you can't use
your debit card when you don't have enough funds. Nationwide, the
banking industry made more in overdraft penalties than people actually
had in their accounts -- for example, if people had $32 billion in
their accounts, the banks assessed fees totaling $34 billion.

They have the technology to fix it so your debit card won't work if
your funds are low, but right now, they're well, laughing all the way
to the bank (haha), so they will not fix things so consumers will
benefit.

As a side note, people also were illegally/fraudulently signed up for
overdraft protection without their knowledge. The feds are looking
into this one.

Um, your debits will still go through regardless of whether or not
there is money in there, just like writing a bad check. This is a
"side-effect" of the now standard "courtesy overdraft" most banks
have. They pay your bad checks, but still charge you a fee. And they
treat debits the same.
I found this out the hard way once; I did not know that debits would
still go through if I didn't have enough money. I was at the store and
thought "I'll try my debit card, and if I don't have enough money, it
will decline and I'll use my credit card". It worked, but when I got
home to put it in my check register, I realized I did NOT have enough
money. I called my bank to find out why the transaction still went
through, and they explained that it fell under courtesy overdraft.
They also told me they would waive the fee that one time (I
immediately transferred money from another account to cover it),
although I did not expect them to, it was very nice of them.

Anyway, I never made that mistake again! Despite the fee being waived,
I LEARNED from my error, and I should hope you would do the same. You
shouldn't have closed your account over something that was your own
fault (and you do have the option to opt-out of this courtesy
overdraft). I'm sure losing your $400-$600 direct deposit every week
put them out of business and they'll drop everything and reopen your
account. You may have wanted to leave that part out.

Just once, I would like to see someone write a letter saying something
like - I screwed up, mea culpa, I'll do better in the future.

Of course, there wouldn't be a point to writing a letter in that case,
so it was kinda a silly suggestion. :)

How to never encounter an overdraft again. The moment you acknowledge
a payment, write it down in your register. Its gone, not yours
anymore and you will never see the money again. Problem solved. And
to be quite honest, the amount of money that they charged you, legally
and within the guidelines of your deposit agreement, is probably going
to be more money than they will make by acting as your depository. I
highly doubt that they would return the fees to you. Suck it up and
consider this an expensive lesson learned.

Why is it that no one who posts on planetfeedback knows how to balance
a checkbook? I agree that the fees are ridiculous, but why are you
spending more money than you have in your account? I overdrafted in
my checking account ONCE back when I was 16 and forgot about a check I
had written, paid my 20 dollar fee, and it never happened again.
Consider this your lesson learned.

Your direct deposit is why the charges were paid for, even if you
don't have the money in there. The bank is going to get there money
before you do. You also need to get a checking register and keep
track of you account better.

No, charges don't always go through immediately.

That's why we still have check registers even though it's usually
pretty easy to check our balances these days. Check registers allow
us to keep track of all the charges we've authorized, not just the
ones that have shown up online, and they protect us against the
illusion that the accounts haven't already "run low" because it looke
like there's plenty of money in there.

It's not pleasant, and I feel for you, but they are unquestionably
*not* overcharging you.

If you deduct each purchase from your available balance you won't
overdraft. Maintain a check register.

If you closed the account but yet still have direct deposit into that
account, there is a possibility that may just reopen the account and
more fees may be added depending on their policies.

I doubt that the bank is so hard up for customers that it would pay
you $204-$238 (refund of 6 or 7 overdraft charges) just so you would
reopen your account. Good one.

Here we go again . . . . . .

It doesn't matter how long it takes for debit purchases to clear your
account. It is your responsiblity as the account holder to ensure
that there is enough money in your account to cover all debits you
have authorized.

Banks charge a certain amount for overdrafts - - in your case $34.00
each - - and it doesn't matter if the overdraft amount is one cent or
one hundred dollars. The simple fact is you didn't have enough money
to cover the debits you authorized so you were charged the per
incident fee as disclosed in your account holder agreement.

If you don't understand the above described concepts, then I would
suggest you not have a checking account until you do.

And I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to refund these fees
not hold the door open for you to re-open your account.

Final word of advice - - if you closed your account without depositing
enough money to cover the overdraft charges, the whole situation isn't
going to just go away because your account is closed. Wells Fargo
will give you a certain period of time to make good and then will
transfer your account to an outside collection agency.

Yes, I agree overdraft fees are high. But that means you have to be
extra vigilant in making sure you don't go over your balance.

In regards to your check card purchases not going through right away,
how long were they taking to clear your account? I've found that a
check card purchase I make on a Saturday will sometimes not go through
until Monday or Tuesday. A couple of days is reasonable; a week or
more is not.

As for your impression that the purchases would not go through on your
debit card if they weren't going to be covered, as you found out,
that's incorrect. Many banks will let a certain amount of purchases go
through because they want those incredibly high overdraft fees.

Keep your check register balanced. I don't know how many people I've
seen getting upset at a company when they themselves have failed to
keep track of how much money they have in their account and start
bouncing checks/debits.