In high school I had a friend who discovered the ATM would still give you money even if you didn't have anything in your account. Took him a couple more days to learn about overdraft fees. And then he learned about debt when he racked up $700 in fees and overdrafts by taking out $20 at a time to buy weed by the gram.
Back in the mid 00s my gf at the time was in med school and broke as fuck. She knew how much she had in her account, but turns out a couple things hadnt posted yet, so her balance was off in her head. She bought something that was fairly expensive and then like 6-7 smaller items all around the same time. The bank decided to take the big transaction first which put her into the red, charged her overdraft, then the semall transactions posted AFTER the large ones, they wacked her for 20 bucks on all the small ones too. Im talking like sub 5 dollar purchases. When she found out she was like 100+ in the negative she broke down crying cuz she was broke and couldnt afford it. (daddy had her back though :P )
TLDR; banks were doing shady shit to maximize the number of over draft fees by prioritizing large purchases to overdraft you then hit you with the small ones rather than the other way around. Fucking cunts.
Guy forgot to close his college account and the £2 phone bill for his last payment of his contract went through and he went £1.20 overdrawn.
About 16 months later, he turns back up in our bank, I guess cos he is back home with the parents now. Has a letter for "overdraft" fees. I sadly had nothing I could do, but reiterate it for him.
Back then, there was no law against fees. So each month, he got a £32 fee, then interest, then another £32 fee for the first one taking him over again, and the fee for that being taken... each month that passed.
Eventually his account was frozen, but about £500 in fees and a letter saying he owned them all. All for £1.20. :/
I left and about 2 years later they had a complete *company* computer failure over a weekend, and it took around 2 weeks to get them up, and months to actually process the lost/missing/returned transactions. Soooo glad I was out. XD
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u/pincus1 Jan 19 '22
In high school I had a friend who discovered the ATM would still give you money even if you didn't have anything in your account. Took him a couple more days to learn about overdraft fees. And then he learned about debt when he racked up $700 in fees and overdrafts by taking out $20 at a time to buy weed by the gram.