Monday, August 5, 2013

Overdraft Fee Settled By Bank Of America For $410 Million

By Cornelius Nunev


Overdraft fees were the focus of a huge class action suit including Bank of America, which the bank just recently came to a settlement agreement in.

Almost a million individuals are named in the case against the bank. Bank of America has agreed to pay $410 million to set-tle the suit. There are an astonishing number of plaintiffs in the case. The suit is an amalgamation of similar suits against a large amount of banks. Don't worry; you will still be able to get your installment loans from these banks.

A lot of banks sued for account charges

Overdraft fees and account fees aren't popular among consumers, and out-rage over fee practices has led to major class action lawsuits against some of the larg-est financial institutions in the United States and Canada. Almost 1 million individuals are part of a huge class action suit, according to Bloomberg, against Bank of America, and comparable suits have been filed against Chase bank, Citigroup and Wells Fargo. Bank of America has won approval to settle for about $410 million. Class action suits are taking place with banks in Canada, Europe and the United States for the fees, according to Reuters. There are over two dozen banks in these suits. There is one name for the case. It is In Re: Checking Account Overdraft Litigation.

Bank of America's overdraft charge issue

Bank of America is alleged to have processed transactions from largest to smallest instead of by when the transactions were made, thus making it more probable that accounts would fall into overdraft and the sum recovered by the banks would be greater. Overdrafts can function like short term credit; the bank will fund the transaction but add a fee to the amount owed by the account holder. Fees vary by institution, though fees between $25 and $35 are common. Some customer advo-cates do not like overdraft fees since they think it is cruel to customers that can't afford them. Banks can no longer enroll consumers into an overdraft protection program automatically; consumers have to elect to enroll.

Pilot B of A program

Bank of America is unveiling a pilot program involving mobile banking, according to the Los Ange-les Times. The customer is sent a text message if a transaction is declined asking if the consumer wants to use the bank's overdraft protection on that transaction. If the customer elects to do so, the custom-er can deposit the required funds by 8 p.m. that evening to stay away from the overdraft charge of $35. This is only allowed with the one transaction. It is very limited. The New York Times states that when the CFPB begins operations, overdraft fees will become significant to review. There has been a fight over the director and powers of the bureau in Congress which may stop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from start-ing in the near future.




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