In a class-action ruling, Judge William Alsup, in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, said the San Francisco bank improperly generated excessive overdraft fees for customers by posting transactions in an order that would generate more fees””a practice many big banks have used for years. Overdraft fees are fees charged to customers who run a negative account balance in their bank accounts and the Federal Reserve recently issued new rules that will curb banks’ ability to charge the fees.
Walk All Over Ya (Wachovia) has done this to me: say you have $1000 in your account and three debits come in: $30, $50 and $1020. They debit the $1020 first and you get NSF fees for 3 debits. I wonder if I get a refund since Wells now owns Wachovia.
“In a class-action ruling, Judge William Alsup, in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, said the San Francisco bank improperly generated excessive overdraft fees for customers by posting transactions in an order that would generate more fees—a practice many big banks have used for years.”
When I grew up in Upstate NY, banks were looked upon as institutions that could be trusted. They were seen as a safe place to keep your money and if you needed a loan for a home or a car they were seen as the safe place to go for an equitable and honest business transaction.
In summary, banks provided an essential and trusted service to the community.
The banks were also ‘local,’ that is, they were part of the local community. The Bank in our village of Scotia was owned by a family and I can remember going to a a cub scout/boy scout meetings at that family’s home. At one of the local banks across the Mohawk River, in Schenectady, NY, the bank president had gone to elementary school with my mother. They had both grown up in what used to be Schenectady’s former Scottish community. A community that had ties throughout all of the many other ethnic communities in the Schenectady area.
Banks were small, by today’s standards; they were trusted; they had ties with the local community; and they were led by a real local person who could be physically approached and held accountable by the local community.
So when I read, “…the San Francisco bank improperly generated excessive overdraft fees for customers by posting transactions in an order that would generate more fees—a practice many big banks have used for years.”
I hang my head in sorrow and am ready to weep over what our country has lost in its financial institutions.
In a nutshell, we have lost trust and accountabilty. Trust and accountability at the ‘local level.’
There is no person to go to to seek relief, there is no one who will lose his/her reputation for questionable behavior in the local community, there is no one whose family will be looked at sketically because of a family member’s family-accepted and unethical business practices, etc.
Just another heartwarming example of how corporate America aided and abetted by politicians of both parties screw the American public daily. Thanks be to God to one judge who saw through the fraud.
Banks are not the only guilty parties. Have you ever wandered why you were charged late fees by oil companies and mortgage companies when you had sent in your payment several weeks (I mean 14 or more days) before the due date. It is still going on though the practice was supposed to stop several years ago.
This is why I don’t use the big national banks anymore. I use two local banks who know me, and with whom I have a relationship. To get the kind of personalized service I get in my home town from Wells/BofA etc. I would have to have multiple millions in deposits.
More than any where else this is where the Chuch’s social capital is missed most – restraining the cohort of political and economic elements desire to maximize power. These elements need each other.
#5–My wife and I talk about this all the time. When is the last time you heard an Episcopal priest give a sermon on shady dealing, financial misdeeds, preying on the poor, bundled mortgages, credit card interest rates, pay day loan companies etc.? Or how about refusing communion to a notorious slum lord? I suppoose there are someDoes “never” have a familiar ring to it?