What might my recourse be for unfair banking overdraft fees?

I recently got married, and several vendors cashed their (BIG) deposit checks on the same day, a Friday, which caused my checking account to overdraft. For the entire weekend (a very busy pre-wedding weekend) I swiped my debit card for various small purchases, including a cup of coffee ($4), a bottle of shampoo at CVS ($8), and USPS stamps ($40). When I got to work on Monday, I logged in to check my account, and was shocked to see I had racked up $500 in overdraft fees. I called the bank immediately, they refunded 3 fees (@ $34 each, that equals $102), and told me to see a branch manager to discuss further. I did, and the manager insisted there was nothing she could do for me. So basically, I lost $400 in bank fees. Is there any recourse? I wish someone from the bank had called me on Friday night when I used my debit card for the first time, to pay for a few after work beers at the bar across the street from my office - I wouldn't have used it again (a dozen times) over the weekend!

Here's the thing, though - had I just gone to the ATM once and taken out several thousand dollars over my limit, I only would have been charged $34 once. However, because I used my debit card, I was charged $34 fees each time I swiped. If I go over my limit, why don't they shut the card off and decline my purchases, like they do with a credit card? I am a very careful spender and always balance my account, and I have never had this happen before, (obviously I would not have made a bunch of purchases if I'd known I had spent all my money). It just seems like a sneaky, unethical racket. Clearly I won't be using this bank to finance the $700k house my husband and I are buying, so I guess in the end, it's their loss, not mine.

sometimes, if you are really nice, you can call the bank and ask them if they can help you out a bit. make sure you have some plan to pay them back reguardless, but if you let them know you you are having a tough time, but are going to be able to fix it in the near future, they can waive your fees.

i thought they werent able to do that sort of thing, but my bank is surprisingly understanding about bounced checks. just make sure you dont bounce anymore checks after they help you out, if they do. tell them it was a bookkeeping error, misunderstanding, got your income a bit later then expected, or something similar. tell them you cant afford a negative on your credit report at this time, or offer to give them a few hundred dollars to hold in just such situations. or you can ask them to put you in for a line of credit (always much cheaper then a credit card rate) so when you bounce checks you automatically borrow money from the bank rather then getting a late fee and a bad entry on your standing at the bank. this is what id recommend for you- it shows you are thinking about being responsibile, get a better rate/deal then just bouncing checks, and you establish a positive credit history. they may charge you a big rate at first, since you have bounced a bunch of checks, but when you square up with them ask for a better rate and they will most likely give it to you.

it also helps if you are dealing with a local bank or credit union as opposed to a big national bank. local bankers can do alot more to bend the rules then a manager of a branch of some national bank. it could help if you open a savings account so they know you have money to pay back your checks. they will be less likely to return your checks (another set of fees and another opprotunity for someone else to make a bad entry in your credit history)

sorry i rambled on, but that is what i can think of for your situation. good luck!

-and if you have credit cards, your rates can go up if you bounce checks to your bank (classy right?). they also will reduce your rates, most of the time, if you just ask them. that is something most people dont know and thus just accept a good 25% rate on your balances. but if you pay them late they will be less willing to lower your rate/increase your line of credit/ reduce your fees/ etc.....

Its your responsibility to check your account and make sure that you dont go over drawn. The bank has every right to charge you if you dont have an auth o/d or go over the limit. The bank can not call every customer every time they use their card.
In future check you account and be responisble. I dont mean to be hard, but I work in finance and see this every day!

How are these overdraft fees unfair? You were irresponsible and caused them yourself. Then the bank was nice enough to give you refunds for a few of them. The bank is not your babysitter - they don't have someone sitting around monitoring your account activity to call you if you start incurring fees.

Unfortunately I do not manage my money very well and therefore I am the queen of overdraft fees. There really is nothing else that can be done and you are lucky that they gave you the money back that they did.
My advice is just to keep track of everything you are spending and write it all down, save reciepts etc.
It's not the banks fault that you continued to withdraw money out knowing that you had to keep a certain amount in there for those big checks. I mean eventually they were going to be cashed.
I have had this happen way to many times and have lost so much money due to overdraft fees. I have learned to write everything down now and make sure I know exactaly what I am spending compared to what I have in the account. I have also learned that not everything is updated right away. Different banks have different hours of processing so you may think you have a certain amount in your account, but come MOnday morning when all the weekend stuff processes, you actually don't/

Good luck in the future with your record keeping. I hate doing it, but I would rather do that then lose hundreds of dollars to bank fees.

I might point out one issue with your story. Vendors cashing checks on the same day did not cause your account to overdraft. You wrote more checks than you had money in your account to cover - THAT'S what caused your account to overdraft.

I'm sympathetic to the fact your pre-wedding weekend was very busy, and that it's easy to not know from minute-to-minute what your balance is, but it is not "unfair" that they charged you for the overdrafts.

Since banks generally provide free checking accounts, they count on fees to provide revenue. For customers they really value, they might refund all the fees. For customers that they can live without, they don't. If they refunded all the fees because people requested it, we'd all be paying $10 a month for checking accounts.

For every person who says the bank shouldn't allow overdrafts, there's another person who says the bank should because they might be out of gas on a Friday night with no cash, and would gladly pay the $34 fee just to get some cash so they can get home. Or they would happily pay the $34 fee so their car payment doesn't bounce. There's no system that will satisfy everyone.

And credit cards will also let you go over your limit, and they charge a fee for that, and possibly raise your interest rate as well.

It simply comes down to this: people who manage their money carefully don't pay fees, or if they do, they know it's coming. They might make a choice to overdraft their account if they feel it's necessary, but they don't get surprised by it.

You wouldn't of overdrafted if you didn't spend so much money, more money than you had. They have every right to incur fees, that has happened to me and I'm not whining about it. And who cares if the vendors cashed their BIG checks on the same day. You should of had BIG money for BIG checks anyway since you knew that they were going to cash them. People like you and the person below me need to wake up and learn how to budget money, seriously.

In regards to your additional details, I actually asked a bank teller that once, about declining your card like a credit card and do you want to know what they told me? She said, "It saves you the embarassment at the store". Right..lol You know how they say "Sorry, it was declined.." Isn't that a load of crap? I would rather be embarassed than fined, but hey it's how they make their money basically.

Well, I wouldn't say is UNFAIR, because you are the one that is responsible for your own account balance. If you spend your money within your available limit, then none of this overdraft fees will incurred. Take some times to read your bank disclosures, the overdraft fee per ITEM not base on dollar amount. Bank don't really call every customer to let them know their accounts don't have enough money for them to spend, because how can they know you are going to spend money and how much you are going to spend??? So from now on, pay attention to your account balance and do keep better track of it. Yes, overdraft fees is how banks make money, but let me ask you this, when you have a REAL EMERGENCY (not having few beers after work) and knowing there is this overdraft fee. Would you want the bank to decline or reject your authorization to some company/vendor who will help you out of this emergency situation? You also need to look at it as, the bank is honoring YOUR AUTHORIZATION for this charge or purchase. Those fees can be avoid, is not like the bank is charging you those fee for no reason. You are lucky that they willing to refund 3 fees for you. I used to work at bank, VERY RARELY that they will refund overdraft fees.

You could switch to a bank with much more reasonable terms or find somewhere else to keep your money that is safe. I agree that this is theft and these individuals who extort from individuals through fee based agreements contribute nothing to the economy. They are leeches that profit off of the hard work of others. They have fees for every ridiculous thing and they do it this way because they could extort the most money this way.

If there is not enough funds, they should've just told the person cashing the check that the funds aren't available yet and to try again later. They should charge for services up front.