Re:Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure
by raydev on Saturday November 13, 2021 @01:03PM
(#29211785)
I got hit by this two separate times in the early 2000s before I learned it was better to withdraw whatever cash I had left. I was already stuggling, living out of my car, and having additional overdraft fees on top of the one I expected was devastating. It literally left me unable to buy food for days, because each overdraft fee was $20 IIRC.
I'm shocked that the transaction reordering is still a practice nearly 20 years later.
So if you spend $5, $5, $5, and $40, in that order, with $38 in the bank, instead of getting one $35 overdraft fee, you get 4. It's the difference between a balance of -$52 and a balance of -$157.
I once worked at a bank where they had for a period doublecharged people for overdrafts, driving them into further overdrafts even after deposits clearly intended to cover those overdrafts had been made. The cheery low-level administrators loudly resented that they had to refund the overcharges at all, because people who kept their accounts that low were obviously deadbeats anyway.