Republicans Vote to Let Banks Screw Over Working Americans
Senate Republicans voted 52-48 to advance a repeal of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule capping bank and credit union overdraft fees at $5.
I remember when I was living with my head barely above poverty in my 20s. All the banks had $30 overdraft fees (probably equivalent of $50 with inflation) that would be charged for every offense.
So if you weren't paying perfect attention to your accounts balance and or got hit by an unexpected charge you were completely fucked. Then when my paycheck lands, I'm already $30-90 under the water for no reason. And then I'm that far below for that entire week making it far more likely I'd get hit with that charge again by the end of this week.
The bank even refused to even turn overdraft off and just refuse charges. I spent many periods of months or years paying my bank like $200/mo for no reason other than I couldn't get out from under these charges.
Fuck banks.
Not only would they hit you for $30 a pop, they would reorder the charges to maximise the number of hits. If say, your paycheck cleared a day late, pushing it to Monday or something dumb like that —when the mortgage payment that came through Monday morning would get processed first, then the bar bill from Friday night and the gas up on Saturday afternoon would get rung in all before the late deposit so they could ding you 3 times instead of 1.
My personal favorite was M&T bank (you scumbag fucking pieces of shit) right out of college, when I was barely covering my expenses, decided that a check I wrote for student loans was going to drop my account too low (I would have had about $4 left in an account with no required minimum balance) so cancelled it without even talking to me.
They hit me with a cancelled check fee from the bank and from the servicer which they then deducted before crediting me the cancelled check to hit me with two overdrafts, which with the extra overdrafts caused a third due to reordering. Total was about $150 in fees for writing a check I HAD THE MONEY FOR . And then, to add insult to injury, lost me my on time payments interest rate deduction forever which probably cost me a few thousand dollars more over the decade or so it took me to pay the loans off.
Sounds like a small claims court case or something. Abhorrent.
And back then the banks would re-order your transactions to maximize fees. So if you had 180 bucks in your account and you had pending transactions that were 3, 6, 10, 15, 5, and 165, the would change the processing order to 165, 15, 10, 6, 5, 3. That way instead of one overdraft fee you be charged four overdraft fees.
I had a paycheck bounce once. Bank of America retroactively applied a $30 fee to every transaction I had made in the three days since depositing it. My balance went from like $800 to -$2000 instantly.
Had a friend back in similar age area, they went one evening, "I'm going to the ATM to take out $20 so I have money for tomorrow before the overdraft I'm already going to get breaks my debit card."
I also had similar overdraft hell story when I was multi-overdrafted rent was entering past due and was on the verge of being homeless waiting for my next paycheck to stay afloat, drove home from work with the engine misfiring nearly dead out of fuel. Went home and scraped a "rare" (like an old quarter or penny, nothing fancy, one of those odd things family gives you) coin jar for enough money to buy a couple gallons of gas and food for my pet.
Wouldn't wish that dogshit on anyone, it is literally criminal greed that can destroy a person in under a week.
I did that too. Make sure you withdraw the max you can if you know the overdraft is gonna hit. Then you at least have some cash until payday.
Dark days...
I know your pain. Around ~2008 I made a check deposit and later that day checked my balance at the atm to see that I had a positive balance that I had printed off. That evening and the following day I proceeded to do 7 or more transactions. The following day after that I got notified that I was being hit with multiple overdraft fees. Logically I went to the bank the next day around 4pm, thinking they would work with me since I had documentation from their ATM saying I had a positive balance. They said they couldnt do anything for me locally and had to contact the branch I opened my account with. We contacted that branch but because they were one timezone over they said they couldn't help me until the next day as they were closing and "oh, yeah several more overdraft charges are about too hit the account." The next day I contact them and they proceed to tell me they can only reverse one charge and I had also accrued a late fee because I hadn't payed any of the overdraft fees off yet.
When everything was said and done I had paid over $450 in fees. Contacting my bank to see if they'd work with me only saved me $2.00 because the late fee was that much lower than another overdraft fee.
In 2009-2011 sometime I got contacted by a law firm as that bank was facing a class-action lawsuit for intentionally prioritizing debits over credits but I had since thrown away my documentation so I didn't join. -To this day it blows my mind that a bank can telll a client that they have a specific positive balance and yet can still rip them off under the guise of "overdraft protection"
They call it "protection" because it's fuckin' racketeering by any other standard!
The way you get out is cancel your bank account a receive paper checks from your job. Then you take those checks to a service that exchanges it for cash. Yes there is a fee but it beats paying $50/week in Overdraft fees
Dems need to filibuster every last bill in the Senate.
Once they grow a fucking spine, maybe. So probably like the year 2059 or so.
Have you not been watching the videos of the floor, confirmation hearings, or investigations? The majority of them have finally started to use their voice. I’m hoping this continues.
Regardless, people need to actually vote in the goddamn primaries and midterms if they want change. An average of ~20% voter turnout in primaries and midterms is exactly why things remain the same.
We need disruption, we get fucking ping pong paddles and pink shirts instead. The Dems are a joke
Republicans despise working-class Americans, it couldn't be more obvious.
Americans voted to screw over working-class Americans, don't fucking try to kid yourselves.
Super convenient to pass the buck even when you get what you voted for.
Edit: Sorry, disgruntled Canadian here. But I did mean what I said.
It's even worse than that. Americans were too lazy, stupid, and gullible to stop it. So many people just punch whoever the (R) candidate is in their ballot, if there's even an option not to. They don't even know who they're voting for or understand the facts about what everyone's talking about. The average voter doesn't even know that tariffs against another country are a tax on us all, for example. Never mind the fact that it's the most basic economic idea of "if the manufacturer pays more then they'll charge you more." There ones with opinions usually just swallow whatever bullshit that Fox spoons into their mouths; conservative minds are programmed to accept on faith whatever the guy at the top says as gospel, the obvious religious analogy being part of said training.
Big win for Wells Fargo, they probably asked nicely... To Help them buy the post office
going back to Pony Express?
Working Americans voted (or not voted) to screw themselves.
How do average republican supporters spin this as a good thing?
Cognitive dissonance? Olympic level mental gymnastics. Massive head trauma?
They will never hear about it
I 100% believe this is one of THE reasons there's so much divide. No one is being told the whole picture, ESPECIALLY Fox News consumers. You have to dig for the whole story
Donald: I love the uneducated!
Don't they already fuck us over? They get bail-outs and we get bankruptcy for medical bills...
Oh yeah, Republicans want to add medical debt back to credit reports.
Ya at least you can opt out of overdraft entirely unlike the banks using your money for irresponsible 'investments'. I have no idea why anyone has overdrafting active on their accounts beyond it simply being the default option, even for a $5 fee it's a total scam.