In order to placate the American public while they continue to steal from us relentlessly and without remorse response to public concern, major banks are redrafting their stances on overdrafting. People, this is literally the best news ever.

For YEARS I have been telling my Dad that overdraft fees are a scam and that my bank is out to get me. Of course, Dad always insisted that I was just irresponsible with my money, which was a true fact. Still, I knew there was more to this story. But I’m not an investigative journalist, so I would just be like, “meh” and then get back to my online shopping. But when literally everyone is so poor that they are eating days-old pizza out of dumpsters, the idea of charging someone $39 for one Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger just seems mean-spirited, no matter how frivolous a purchaser’s choices.

However cruel the overdraft game may be, it’s not unusual: Banks are expected to rake in almost $40 billion in revenue from so-called “overdraft protection” fees. Calling these charges “protection” is like recommending pregnancy as a form of birth control. To point out just a few of the more abhorrent practices:

• Consumers are often signed up for “overdraft protection” without their knowledge (leading to the oft-heard meltdown mantra, “I don’t see why they don’t just not let me charge it if I have no money!”).
• Charges would often be applied in order of amount rather than the order in which the transactions took place. In other words, they would apply a $75 bar tab before applying each of the separate times you used your card for oh, I dunno what you’re into, let’s just say blunt wraps, water balloons, and KY Warming Jelly. So even though each of those pregaming items only costs a few bucks, they end up costing you as much as the six mind erasers you bought afterward.  

Pretty much everyone in Congress can relate to the major inconvenience of paying $50 for a bottle of lube, so they have finally Put Their Foot Down. And by that, I mean they have dared to suggest that the banks have caused enough damage to the economy and it may be time to stop purposely making people go broker than they are already.

As per new guidelines announced today, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase both plan to take overdraft protection out of the fine print, meaning that customers will have the option of facing slight embarrassment at a declined card rather than hundreds of dollars of charges when they’re out of money. In addition, the banks will limit the number of overdraft fees per day to 3 or 4, and put a halt the abominable cherry-picking charging that puts more expensive transactions through before cheaper ones.

Most importantly, however, both banks have also agreed not to charge overdraft fees when balances are just barely in the red: Bank of America customers get a $10 cushion; JP Morgan Chase customers get $5. Meanwhile, in a land far, far away (England), apparent badass GoBro is pretty much demanding that banks actually refund unfair overdraft charges in excess of 4 billion British moneys. Screw Britain, can we hire that guy to run the evil National City?

While this development comes about six years too late to help with my perpetually negative undergraduate bank account, it’s still good news for pretty much everyone in the country except for people who still balance their checkbooks (I don’t know any of those people, but I see them at the grocery store sometimes, taking for-fucking-ever). So let us rejoice! Because if we’re all going to get swine flu and be sent to Obama’s death panels to meet our fate, the last thing we need to be worrying about is paying forty bucks for “Party in the USA” off iTunes.

[WaPo]
[Mail Online]