4 ms·

The article mentions that many people are unbanked because they fear overdraft fees, or have had to pay them before. This is a well known problem, and it drives

The article mentions that many people are unbanked because they fear overdraft fees, or have had to pay them before. This is a well known problem, and it drives people to use check cashing stores and debit cards like the one WalMart offers instead of banks.

flukus 10y ago
They can't get debit cards from a bank? Even my mastercard is tied to a debit account. Edit - from the comments below it sounds like the issue is caused by a fucked up banking system more than anything.
- protomyth 10y ago
  They cannot get a bank account to get a debit card. Banks and a lot of credit unions have become problematic for low income folks.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Why is it hard to get a bank account? There is no risk to the bank from a low income person having an account, worst case for them is it's empty.
    - rdl 10y ago
      There is risk to the bank for bad-credit people having an account. 1) CSR interactions cost them way more than they'll ever make from the account, if the person stays poor forever 2) A lot of banking actions are not proper "transactions" or atomic in the CS sense -- you can end up overdrawing an account pretty easily. A genuinely poor person is eventually going to get charged off on this. A lot of poor people fail chexsystems (bank account credit check, basically) from bounced checks, and thus can't open accounts. Which then limits their access to the banking system, including receiving funds, forcing them to use more expensive alternatives.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2013/07/30/over-a-million-are-denied-bank-accounts-for-past-errors/ https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2013/07/30/over-a-...
- sigstoat 10y ago
  you can overdraft debit cards, and of the college students i've known over the years, that's the most common thing to overdraft. and then find out about your overdraft (and the 17 following it) a week later when you get a letter in the mail.
  - flukus 10y ago
    > you can overdraft debit cards Not always, my debit cards have always had the overdraft facility turned off. If there's no money in the account then the transaction doesn't go through.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Unsure why this is so downvoted? Several banks support turning off the overdraft feature, which just causes debit transactions to be declined (or ACH items returned).
      - twblalock 10y ago
        The problem is that those features don't always work if multiple pending transactions have been submitted, or if checks are used, transactions ordered a certain way (some banks have been in trouble for doing this in the past), etc.
      - aianus 10y ago
        What about NSF fees? The NSF fee at my bank is 8x more than the overdraft fee ($40 vs $5 + 20% APR). Turning overdraft off would be a poor choice for me even if I anticipated the occasional overdraft.
    - rdl 10y ago
      It's possible to overdraft a debit card even if overdraft is not enabled on the account, due to how some merchants process some transactions.
      - flukus 10y ago

flukus 10y ago

They can't get debit cards from a bank? Even my mastercard is tied to a debit account. Edit - from the comments below it sounds like the issue is caused by a fucked up banking system more than anything.

protomyth 10y ago
They cannot get a bank account to get a debit card. Banks and a lot of credit unions have become problematic for low income folks.
- flukus 10y ago
  Why is it hard to get a bank account? There is no risk to the bank from a low income person having an account, worst case for them is it's empty.
  - rdl 10y ago
    There is risk to the bank for bad-credit people having an account. 1) CSR interactions cost them way more than they'll ever make from the account, if the person stays poor forever 2) A lot of banking actions are not proper "transactions" or atomic in the CS sense -- you can end up overdrawing an account pretty easily. A genuinely poor person is eventually going to get charged off on this. A lot of poor people fail chexsystems (bank account credit check, basically) from bounced checks, and thus can't open accounts. Which then limits their access to the banking system, including receiving funds, forcing them to use more expensive alternatives.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2013/07/30/over-a-million-are-denied-bank-accounts-for-past-errors/ https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2013/07/30/over-a-...
sigstoat 10y ago
you can overdraft debit cards, and of the college students i've known over the years, that's the most common thing to overdraft. and then find out about your overdraft (and the 17 following it) a week later when you get a letter in the mail.
- flukus 10y ago
  > you can overdraft debit cards Not always, my debit cards have always had the overdraft facility turned off. If there's no money in the account then the transaction doesn't go through.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Unsure why this is so downvoted? Several banks support turning off the overdraft feature, which just causes debit transactions to be declined (or ACH items returned).
    - twblalock 10y ago
      The problem is that those features don't always work if multiple pending transactions have been submitted, or if checks are used, transactions ordered a certain way (some banks have been in trouble for doing this in the past), etc.
    - aianus 10y ago
      What about NSF fees? The NSF fee at my bank is 8x more than the overdraft fee ($40 vs $5 + 20% APR). Turning overdraft off would be a poor choice for me even if I anticipated the occasional overdraft.
  - rdl 10y ago
    It's possible to overdraft a debit card even if overdraft is not enabled on the account, due to how some merchants process some transactions.
    - flukus 10y ago