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 Dear
Dr. Don,
I made five debit charges and an ATM withdrawal over the weekend. On Monday night a check went against my account and the bank paid it even though there was not enough money to cover it because of the weekend activity in the account. The bank went ahead and paid it as a courtesy but then charged me six NSF (not sufficient funds) fees on the debit charges and the ATM withdrawal.
I thought that debit charges and ATM withdrawals are automatically taken off of your balance. If these charges would have been taken off, I would have only one NSF fee, not six.
I spoke to the bank and their reply
was, "We've always paid the highest check
first." I said to them, "These are debit
charges, which should have been taken off of my
balance automatically and I would only have had
one NSF fee." They said that there was nothing
they could do.
Any help from you will be greatly appreciated,
-- Luis Laments
 Dear
Luis,
The problem is in assuming the debit and ATM transactions hit your account instantly. Your weekend transactions were bundled with Monday's transactions and that included the check presented for payment against your account.
Banks often have the largest items charged against the account first because they are often the most important transactions to a customer. If you have a choice of having the mortgage payment clear or that $1.29 purchase at a convenience store, it's the late payment on your mortgage that can create credit issues that you'd want to avoid.
You can vote with your feet and choose a bank that doesn't present payments largest to smallest. I just haven't been able to find that bank for you. That is, if all these NSF charges don't ruin your banking consumer report.
ChexSytems is the
main provider of these reports.You can get a free
copy of your ChexSystems report once each year.
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