4 ms·

In 2004 I was traveling around Europe as a 20 year old. Spent my debit account down to my last $20. I had a flight from Barcelona back to Boise and the airline

In 2004 I was traveling around Europe as a 20 year old. Spent my debit account down to my last $20. I had a flight from Barcelona back to Boise and the airline had supposedly issued a paper ticket, not an e-ticket. Long story short, if I couldn’t produce the paper ticket, my flight was going to leave without me. I didn’t have a credit card and I knew I was out of money but I said what the hell, try my debit card to purchase a new flight. Lo and behold, it went through! I came home and a week later my account was -$5,500. Wells Fargo had taken the last charge, the $900 flight, reordered it and I accumulated $4,600 in overdraft fees. I’ve never been so angry in my life. They did not fix the charges, and I got bailed out by my mom. I plead my case over and over but everyone, including my mom, just drew it up as an non-responsible college kid. Every time I tell this story it makes my blood boil.

jakub_g 5y ago
How in the hell they calculated so much overdraft fees? They charge 500% overdraft?
- ikr678 5y ago
  Poster probably had a series of small transactions from travelling ($5,12$,$13 etc). The bank moved the $900 to the front of the payment queue, and then every one of the smaller transactions cops the fee. It wasn't 500% of 900, it was the sum of the overdrafts on all the previous transactions.
  - jakub_g 5y ago
    For ~4k-ish of overdraft fees assuming ~$40 per single overdraft, they'd have to have hundred-ish transactions, sounds like a lot transactions (or the overdraft fees getting exponentially bigger with each one?)
    - chasebank 5y ago
      I was tooling around Europe for a few weeks before I left and was using my debit card everywhere. 1 euro coffee, beer here, beer there, it all added up. For whatever reason, the overseas transactions didn't clear as fast as a stateside one usually did. I imagine it was like a weeks worth of transactions. 12/day isn't really crazy when traveling but it's been so long, the only detail I really remember was the final blow.
nodemaker 5y ago
Ha I had the exact same experience with Wachovia bank in New York City once and basically their argument was on the lines of “The highest value transaction was probably the most important for you so we ordered it by price so that your most important transactions go through first”. In a way though I feel like the American system is set up to traumatize you for being poor so much that you develop the thirst to become a millionaire one day when these things don’t affect you.
- kwere 5y ago
  or to keep you vulnerable/exploitable and maybe accomplice higher up in the ladder

jakub_g 5y ago

How in the hell they calculated so much overdraft fees? They charge 500% overdraft?

ikr678 5y ago
Poster probably had a series of small transactions from travelling ($5,12$,$13 etc). The bank moved the $900 to the front of the payment queue, and then every one of the smaller transactions cops the fee. It wasn't 500% of 900, it was the sum of the overdrafts on all the previous transactions.
- jakub_g 5y ago
  For ~4k-ish of overdraft fees assuming ~$40 per single overdraft, they'd have to have hundred-ish transactions, sounds like a lot transactions (or the overdraft fees getting exponentially bigger with each one?)
  - chasebank 5y ago
    I was tooling around Europe for a few weeks before I left and was using my debit card everywhere. 1 euro coffee, beer here, beer there, it all added up. For whatever reason, the overseas transactions didn't clear as fast as a stateside one usually did. I imagine it was like a weeks worth of transactions. 12/day isn't really crazy when traveling but it's been so long, the only detail I really remember was the final blow.

nodemaker 5y ago

Ha I had the exact same experience with Wachovia bank in New York City once and basically their argument was on the lines of “The highest value transaction was probably the most important for you so we ordered it by price so that your most important transactions go through first”. In a way though I feel like the American system is set up to traumatize you for being poor so much that you develop the thirst to become a millionaire one day when these things don’t affect you.

kwere 5y ago
or to keep you vulnerable/exploitable and maybe accomplice higher up in the ladder