Lyft Overdraft Fees Possibly Wrongfully Applied if You Opted Out of Overdraft Program

If Lyft overdraft fees have become a problem, your bank might be placing  unauthorized charges on your account.

Unless you have signed up for your bank’s overdraft protection program, any charge that is not considered a recurring payment should be declined. If a one-time charge such as a Lyft or Uber ride goes through and results in your checking account being overdrawn, you may incur an overdraft fee of around $35 for the bank’s “courtesy” of covering that ride.

Customers are crying foul on Lyft overdraft fees, saying they would have simply not taken the ride or they would have let one of their friends pay for the excursion rather than incur hefty bank fees.

If you haven’t signed up for your bank’s overdraft protection, how are you incurring such overdraft fees? The fact is many of the new phone apps save a customer’s financial information. Some apps go a step further by automatically connecting to an online payment system you have set up on your phone such as Apple pay.

Apps such as Lyft, Uber, iTunes and other single-use purchasing apps might wrongly classify their charges as “recurring” payments even though each charge is a single-use transaction.

In the case of these apps, “recurring” seems to mean that the app creators simply “expect” customers to wish to use the apps again for additional single transactions.

This expectation is not the same thing as a “recurring” transaction. This is important because financial institutions are not legally allowed to charge a customer overdraft fees on non-recurring charges unless the customer has opted in to an overdraft protection program that gives the bank permission to do so.

Uber, Lyft Overdraft Fees Lawsuits

Separate lawsuits have been filed against several banks, including Bank of America, TD Bank and Bank of the West. The financial institutions allegedly charged Uber and Lyft overdraft fees even though the customers did not opt in to the banks’ overdraft protection programs.

Last year, Bank of America reached a $30 million class action settlement with more than three million customers who accused the bank of incorrectly charge overdraft fees. Plaintiffs alleged the bank’s misclassification of the Uber charges was a way for Bank of America to generate more income on overdraft fees.

A class action lawsuit filed against TD Bank in New Jersey alleges the bank wrongfully allowed customers to incur Uber and Lyft overdraft fees.

The plaintiffs seek more than $5 million because they say they never opted in to TD Bank’s “debit card advance program,” an overdraft protection program. The lawsuit alleges that because the ride sharing charges were not recurring charges, the charges should have been declined, preventing overdraft fees from being applied.

If you have not opted in to your bank’s overdraft protection program, but you have been charged Uber or Lyft overdraft fees, you could be eligible to participate in a class action lawsuit investigation.

Join a Free Uber and Lyft Bank Fees Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were wrongfully charged an overdraft fee from an app or digital service even though you did not agree to allow your bank to charge you overdraft fees, you may qualify to file a recurring bank fee class action lawsuit.

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