It wasn’t illegal, and maybe isn’t (although I thought it was). I know that I was impacted by this as a college student, and ended up paying hundreds of dollars in fees for a single weekend. I had OD protection fees and “bounce fees” for the “protection fees”. It was insane. However I thought this was at least made unprofitable by capping fees and limiting when they could be applied.

All of this insane behavior is a big reason why the CFPB was created, and legislation was passed to limit “overdraft protection” auto-opt-in.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/100...