I remember when I was living with my head barely above poverty in my 20s. All the banks had $30 overdraft fees (probably equivalent of $50 with inflation) that would be charged for every offense.
So if you weren’t paying perfect attention to your accounts balance and or got hit by an unexpected charge you were completely fucked. Then when my paycheck lands, I’m already $30-90 under the water for no reason. And then I’m that far below for that entire week making it far more likely I’d get hit with that charge again by the end of this week.
The bank even refused to even turn overdraft off and just refuse charges. I spent many periods of months or years paying my bank like $200/mo for no reason other than I couldn’t get out from under these charges.
Not only would they hit you for $30 a pop, they would reorder the charges to maximise the number of hits. If say, your paycheck cleared a day late, pushing it to Monday or something dumb like that —when the mortgage payment that came through Monday morning would get processed first, then the bar bill from Friday night and the gas up on Saturday afternoon would get rung in all before the late deposit so they could ding you 3 times instead of 1.
My personal favorite was M&T bank (you scumbag fucking pieces of shit) right out of college, when I was barely covering my expenses, decided that a check I wrote for student loans was going to drop my account too low (I would have had about $4 left in an account with no required minimum balance) so cancelled it without even talking to me.
They hit me with a cancelled check fee from the bank and from the servicer which they then deducted before crediting me the cancelled check to hit me with two overdrafts, which with the extra overdrafts caused a third due to reordering. Total was about $150 in fees for writing a check I HAD THE MONEY FOR . And then, to add insult to injury, lost me my on time payments interest rate deduction forever which probably cost me a few thousand dollars more over the decade or so it took me to pay the loans off.
Had a friend back in similar age area, they went one evening, “I’m going to the ATM to take out $20 so I have money for tomorrow before the overdraft I’m already going to get breaks my debit card.”
I also had similar overdraft hell story when I was multi-overdrafted rent was entering past due and was on the verge of being homeless waiting for my next paycheck to stay afloat, drove home from work with the engine misfiring nearly dead out of fuel. Went home and scraped a rare coin jar for enough money to buy a couple gallons of gas and food for my pet.
Wouldn’t wish that dogshit on anyone, it is literally criminal greed that can destroy a person in under a week.
The way you get out is cancel your bank account a receive paper checks from your job. Then you take those checks to a service that exchanges it for cash. Yes there is a fee but it beats paying $50/week in Overdraft fees
I remember when I was living with my head barely above poverty in my 20s. All the banks had $30 overdraft fees (probably equivalent of $50 with inflation) that would be charged for every offense.
So if you weren’t paying perfect attention to your accounts balance and or got hit by an unexpected charge you were completely fucked. Then when my paycheck lands, I’m already $30-90 under the water for no reason. And then I’m that far below for that entire week making it far more likely I’d get hit with that charge again by the end of this week.
The bank even refused to even turn overdraft off and just refuse charges. I spent many periods of months or years paying my bank like $200/mo for no reason other than I couldn’t get out from under these charges.
Fuck banks.
Not only would they hit you for $30 a pop, they would reorder the charges to maximise the number of hits. If say, your paycheck cleared a day late, pushing it to Monday or something dumb like that —when the mortgage payment that came through Monday morning would get processed first, then the bar bill from Friday night and the gas up on Saturday afternoon would get rung in all before the late deposit so they could ding you 3 times instead of 1.
My personal favorite was M&T bank (you scumbag fucking pieces of shit) right out of college, when I was barely covering my expenses, decided that a check I wrote for student loans was going to drop my account too low (I would have had about $4 left in an account with no required minimum balance) so cancelled it without even talking to me.
They hit me with a cancelled check fee from the bank and from the servicer which they then deducted before crediting me the cancelled check to hit me with two overdrafts, which with the extra overdrafts caused a third due to reordering. Total was about $150 in fees for writing a check I HAD THE MONEY FOR . And then, to add insult to injury, lost me my on time payments interest rate deduction forever which probably cost me a few thousand dollars more over the decade or so it took me to pay the loans off.
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Had a friend back in similar age area, they went one evening, “I’m going to the ATM to take out $20 so I have money for tomorrow before the overdraft I’m already going to get breaks my debit card.”
I also had similar overdraft hell story when I was multi-overdrafted rent was entering past due and was on the verge of being homeless waiting for my next paycheck to stay afloat, drove home from work with the engine misfiring nearly dead out of fuel. Went home and scraped a rare coin jar for enough money to buy a couple gallons of gas and food for my pet.
Wouldn’t wish that dogshit on anyone, it is literally criminal greed that can destroy a person in under a week.
The way you get out is cancel your bank account a receive paper checks from your job. Then you take those checks to a service that exchanges it for cash. Yes there is a fee but it beats paying $50/week in Overdraft fees
Then you lose all access to the Visa/MasterCard network which is basically required for most bills.
Or worse, you risk getting robbed of your whole check by your roommates friend.
Life without a bank account was hard then. Probably harder now.
Go to Walmart and buy a visa gift card. They max out at $500 which is plenty. You’d pay for it in cash.