Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nationwide
Banks generate billions of dollars a year in customer overdraft fees, and many of them have done so through the use of unfair policies.
The Philadelphia lawyers at Golomb & Honik are currently litigating bank overdraft claims from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and across the United States regarding banks that have employed deceptive financial practices to generate excessive overdraft fees from debit card holders and check writers who unknowingly overdraft their accounts.
Unfair Bank Overdraft Fee Practices
In theory, overdraft protection may seem like a good service. Until recently, banks sold overdraft programs as a means of protecting consumers from the occasional miscalculated balance and the adverse effects that can accompany having insufficient funds.
In practice, however, the bank lawyers at Golomb & Honik have seen that overdraft protection has been used as a tool to maximize the fees associated with overdrawing on your account. Banks use various deceptive techniques to garner overdraft fees, including the resequencing of customer transactions from the highest amount to the lowest amount rather than when the transactions are chronologically received. By resequencing these transactions, it maximizes the fees the banks can obtain.
Changes to Overdraft Regulations
Prior to recently reformed federal laws, banks provided overdraft protection and charged related fees without customer consent unless the customer “opted out” of overdraft protection. Today, to protect the consumer, the consumer must “opt in” to accept overdraft protection. However, there are still exceptions that allow banks to charge overdraft fees even if you are not enrolled in, or have opted out of, overdraft protection. If, for example, you previously authorized automatic monthly deductions such as utility payments that leave your account with insufficient funds, your bank may resort to unfair practices to charge you excessive overdraft fees.
If you believe you have been a victim of unfair bank overdraft fees or other deceptive financial practices, please contact the Philadelphia bank attorneys at Golomb & Honik for a no-cost case evaluation. We welcome prospective clients from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and across the country.
