<story><title>The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America</title><url>http://banksimple.com/blog/Banking/the-36-dollar-soda-overdrafting-in-america/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Confusion</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  It&apos;s the exact type of behavior I would expect 
  from a bank.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
From &lt;i&gt;an American&lt;/i&gt; bank. There is no German, Dutch or French bank that does that and I doubt Spanish, Italian or Swiss banks do it. Sure, if I overdraft, I pay (serious) interest over the amount overdrawn for as long as I am overdrawn, but you aren&apos;t hit with any fine at all.&lt;p&gt;In fact, I have arranged that I actually can&apos;t overdraft. Automatic bills just bounce when I&apos;m underfunded. That&apos;s between me and the companies whose bills bounced.</text></item><item><author>steve8918</author><text>In the book &quot;The Big Short&quot;, Michael Lewis mentions how one CEO admitted to an audience that free checking accounts were simply a way of screwing over poor people for all these additional fees, like overdraft, etc.  It&apos;s really because people with less money need to spend more time managing their money because they are closer to drawing down the account, and the banks are betting on this.  It&apos;s basically predatory banking, and I guess based on the numbers, extremely profitable.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s the exact type of behavior I would expect from a bank.  But let&apos;s not swallow everything that the article said.  It&apos;s not like banks of yesteryear were so magnanimous.  Back in the Great Depression, it was the banks that screwed over so many farmers and home-owners that many states, including California, made mortgages non-recourse meaning that banks could only take back the house in the case of foreclosure, something that many people took advantage of during the latest housing boom.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>furyg3</author><text>As an American who moved to the Netherlands, I can vouch for this.  My fellow countrymen don&apos;t know what they&apos;re missing:&lt;p&gt;* There are no ATM fees levied by another bank&apos;s ATMs.&lt;p&gt;* There are no ATM fees levied by &lt;i&gt;your bank&lt;/i&gt; for using another bank&apos;s ATMs.&lt;p&gt;* There are no fees or minimum transactions for using your debit card at a business.&lt;p&gt;* You are allowed to overdraft, you just pay an interest rate to the bank for the money you owe (mine is 10%, up to €2,500).&lt;p&gt;* There are no bounced check fees, because:&lt;p&gt;* There are no checks.  Non-debit card transactions are done via online banking, are free, and usually instantaneous.&lt;p&gt;* All banks use 2-step authentication (phishing is nearly impossible).&lt;p&gt;I was confronted by the joke of US banking again recently when I had to mail someone in the US a check, which they lost, found 6 months later and cashed... generating an overdraft fee in my US account.&lt;p&gt;Totally unnecessary.</text></comment>
<story><title>The $36 soda: Overdrafting in America</title><url>http://banksimple.com/blog/Banking/the-36-dollar-soda-overdrafting-in-america/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Confusion</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  It&apos;s the exact type of behavior I would expect 
  from a bank.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
From &lt;i&gt;an American&lt;/i&gt; bank. There is no German, Dutch or French bank that does that and I doubt Spanish, Italian or Swiss banks do it. Sure, if I overdraft, I pay (serious) interest over the amount overdrawn for as long as I am overdrawn, but you aren&apos;t hit with any fine at all.&lt;p&gt;In fact, I have arranged that I actually can&apos;t overdraft. Automatic bills just bounce when I&apos;m underfunded. That&apos;s between me and the companies whose bills bounced.</text></item><item><author>steve8918</author><text>In the book &quot;The Big Short&quot;, Michael Lewis mentions how one CEO admitted to an audience that free checking accounts were simply a way of screwing over poor people for all these additional fees, like overdraft, etc.  It&apos;s really because people with less money need to spend more time managing their money because they are closer to drawing down the account, and the banks are betting on this.  It&apos;s basically predatory banking, and I guess based on the numbers, extremely profitable.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s the exact type of behavior I would expect from a bank.  But let&apos;s not swallow everything that the article said.  It&apos;s not like banks of yesteryear were so magnanimous.  Back in the Great Depression, it was the banks that screwed over so many farmers and home-owners that many states, including California, made mortgages non-recourse meaning that banks could only take back the house in the case of foreclosure, something that many people took advantage of during the latest housing boom.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joelhaasnoot</author><text>As a European I still marvel at the craziness of American banks. I just graduated college this summer, working at a startup now, so cash is tight, have some student loans, yet I never overdraft cause I can&apos;t. If I could, I know the temptation would be too big. (Do have a credit card though, which essentially is an overdraft as the bill comes the 26th of each month, but is automatically paid in full).</text></comment>