FirstMerit Bank Overdraft Fee Class Action

FirstMerit Bank has just joined the growing list of banks being hit with class action lawsuits for unfairly manipulating the order of transactions in customers’ checking accounts to rack up as many overdraft fees as possible.

The FirstMerit overdraft fee class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of thousands of Ohio customers who suffered excessive overdraft fees due to the bank’s practice of sequencing debit card transactions in non-chronological order. Lead plaintiffs Donald and Vickie Stevens of Crestline, Ohio, allege in the lawsuit they have been hit with nearly $1,000 in overdraft fees in recent years thanks to FirstMerit’s alleged unfair practice.

“FirstMerit’s overdraft fees often cost a customer hundreds of dollars in a matter of days or hours, even when the customer actually is overdrawn by only a few dollars or not at all,” said the overdraft fee class action.

The lawsuit maintains that the bank should post debit and electronic transactions as they occur during the day, instead of waiting until the end of the day to reshuffle them so that the maximum number of overdraft fees can be charged. FirstMerit is accused on not only shuffling transactions on the same day, but of also clustering transactions that occurred over several days all on the same day.

For example, if a customer has $100 in his account and makes two transactions for $25 on Tuesday and two transactions for $75 on Thursday, FirstMerit would post all the transactions on Thursday to create four overdraft fees, instead of two.

FirstMerit isn’t the only bank getting sued over overdraft fees. Just last week, Fifth Third Bank agreed to pay customers $9.5 million to settle an overdraft fee class action lawsuit accusing the bank of improperly charging overdraft fees on debit cards and ATM withdrawals. And this summer Wells Fargo was ordered by a federal judge to stop a similar overdraft policy and pay a $203 million class action settlement.