Banks Charge Undue Overdraft Fees, Lawsuits Follow
Clients from over fifty banks and credit unions nationwide allege they were wrongfully charged overdraft fees for failed transactions, despite having enough money in their accounts to cover the transactions. Even worse, many institutions purportedly charged multiple overdraft fees per single failed transaction as the bank attempted to process it.
Recent lawsuits indicate that dozens of lending institutions including including HSBC Bank USA, Bank of America, Capital One, and USAA have faced (and some already settled) lawsuits. For some clients, however, this meant wrestling with a sudden $80 spurious charge to their accounts. If these inauthentic overdraft fees keep repeating, they could swipe hundreds of dollars from a person's bank account.
An "overdraft fee" or "NSF (non-sufficient funds) fee" is a type of fee charged by a bank when someone overdraws a checking or market account. Overdraft fees usually range between $20-$35. However, if these overdraft charges are being repeated for single transactions, then there is a chance that the bank may withdraw two to three times that amount for a single transaction.
There is the chance the fee-charging is accidental; glitches in software, transaction pile-ups, and other problems could be contributing to the inappropriate NSF fees. However, banks and credit unions also make billions in revenue each year from overdraft and NSF fees, which explains the many reasonable suspicions that some of these fees are arranged. Some allege that the fees result from improper data sequencing. Whether these wrongful fees are charged by accident or with malicious intent, the consumer still faces the dismal reality that they are losing hard-earned money down a corporate rabbit hole. That cannot keep happening.