 The
bank makes the rules
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 Dear
Dr. Don,
I was charged 11 NSF (non-sufficient funds) charges for check card
transactions that were approved over a weekend (some were very small
like $2.50). We had sufficient funds in the account to cover them.
On Monday, they removed funds for a bill pay function -- prior to
when the check they mailed was even presented for payment. Then,
after this, they 'posted' all the weekend payments, which had been
approved, and declared them all NSF. How can they approve transactions,
and then do this?
-- Philip Payments
 Dear
Philip,
The bank sets up the rules in terms of how they post transactions
to your account and, as you've learned, it's important to know how
they're going to post the transactions. One of the biggest drawbacks
to automated bill paying is that banks almost always tap the funds
the day the transaction is initiated, not the day it clears the
account. It's also fairly common for banks to post transactions
from largest to smallest. The logic is that the larger payments
are usually more important, like the mortgage, rent or car payment,
and you wouldn't want that payment to fail because of insufficient
funds.
The crux of your problem is that you're living in
real time, the debit card gives you the illusion that you're living
in real time, but account reconciliation processes uses batch processing
and business days. If those debit transactions hit your account
as they occurred over the weekend you'd only have one NSF, the one
generated by the automatic bill payment.
If your bank puts all those NSFs on your ChexSystems
consumer report it's going to make it very difficult for you to
vote with your feet and find a new bank that wants your business.
Talk to the bank's customer service representative about getting
these fees both waived and not reported to ChexSystems. Talk to
them about some form of overdraft protection so this situation can't
happen again. (Leave out the part about voting with your feet.)
The Bankrate feature, "Overdraft
protection plans," has more information about overdraft protection.
To ask a question of Dr. Don, go
to the "Ask the Experts"
page, and select one of these topics: "financing a home,"
"saving & investing" or "money."
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