If you have been charged overdraft fees but you didn’t sign up for an overdraft protection program, your bank may be engaging in deceptive and unlawful practices. Lawyers are now investigating Nationwide Bank overdraft fees and overdraft fees at other banks to ensure consumers aren’t being taken advantage of.

Banks charge overdraft fees when a consumer attempts to make a purchase that exceeds the funds in their account, and the bank allows the purchase to go through, nonetheless. Each time this happens, the bank charges the account holder a fee, called an overdraft protection fee.

By law, banks are only allowed to charge these fees if a customer actively opts in to an overdraft protection plan. If a consumer has not opted in to an overdraft protection program, the transaction should not be paid.

The government has placed restrictions on overdraft protection fees because though they are advertised as a convenience that gives customers flexibility over their money, they can be confusing. Consumers can rack up hundreds of dollars in fees without even realizing that they have overdrawn their account.

Banks gain a large percentage of their profits from fees they can charge. In fact, banks gain billions of dollars in profits from overdraft fees alone. However, customers are incurring fewer and fewer overdraft fees. This is possibly because it is easier than ever to check a bank account balance using online mobile banking.

Banks are feeling the pressure of fewer and fewer people overdrawing their accounts because they aren’t able to charge as many fees as they used to.

Some bank customers say that banks are using deceptive and unlawful methods to charge more overdraft fees from their customers. Nationwide Bank is among several institutions whose overdraft practices are getting a closer look. Consumer advocates want to make sure customers aren’t getting charged excessive Nationwide Bank overdraft fees.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has looked into overdraft fee practices at numerous banks. This could result in new rules being announced, that will protect consumers from excessive fees. However, the new rules won’t help people who may have been harmed by Nationwide Bank overdraft fees or excessive overdraft fees at other banks.

Banks that may be engaging in deceptive overdraft fee practices include:

• Alliant Credit Union
• Astoria Bank
• BECU (Boeing Employees Credit Union)
• Educational Employees Credit Union (EECU – California)
• Nationwide
• Pacific Western
• Patelco
• State Employees Federal Credit Union (SEFCU – New York)
• Sterling Bank

Overdraft Fee Lawsuits

Several banks have already faced class action lawsuits over their possibly unlawful and deceptive overdraft fee practices. In some cases, these overdraft fee class action lawsuits have resulted in settlements, which can offer consumers some compensation for financial injury possibly caused by excessive fees.

In some cases, consumers say banks charge overdraft fees even though they are not enrolled in an overdraft protection program. Charging an overdraft fee to a consumer who has not properly opted into an overdraft protection program is in violation of the law.

In other cases, consumers claim that banks run transactions out of order or run transactions in large batches to maximize the number of overdraft fees they can charge. Consumers say that they are being charged overdraft fees for transactions they made when their account was overdrawn, but because of the banks’ timing of when the transaction goes through, they end up overdrawing their account nonetheless.

You may have a legal claim if your were charged excessive overdraft fees by one of these banks or credit unions:

• Alliant Credit Union
• Astoria Bank
• BECU (Boeing Employees Credit Union)
• Nationwide
• Pacific Western
• Patelco Credit Union
• State Employees Federal Credit Union (SEFCU – New York)
• Sterling Bank
• Educational Employees Credit Union (California)

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