A man from Tennessee claims he was charged allegedly illegal overdraft fees by United Community Bank (UCB), allegedly violating the terms of his policy with the bank. The man opted to file a class action overdraft fees lawsuit, as the allegedly illegal overdraft fees put him through unnecessary financial stress.

Plaintiff Dennis J. recently filed this overdraft fees class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, who also may have suffered allegedly illegal overdraft fees. According to the claim, the bank had instated these allegedly illegal overdraft fees on debit card transactions when his account was insufficient.

An overdraft fee occurs when the customer’s primary account has insufficient funds and the bank or credit union must front the funds or transfer money from a secondary account to cover the purchase. Banks and credit unions charge overdraft fees for this service and commonly offer this protection to customers. However banks and credit unions must get express consent from the customer before implementing the program or any charges.

Overview of Overdraft Fees Lawsuit

While it is standard in overdraft protection to charge process fees to customers, Dennis states that he quickly paid the fee and replenished his primary checking account. However, Dennis claims the bank allegedly charged illegal overdraft fees on the same transaction in question, which was assessed on April 27, 2017.

Dennis claims he scheduled his payments or transfers once, and reportedly took no action to reprocess these transactions. Due to the fact that Dennis only scheduled this payment once, he argues that UCB was only entitled one overdraft fee on each of the debit card transactions.

In other words, when a transaction is returned for insufficient funds in the primary account, the bank cannot use this transaction as a way to charge multiple overdrafts. In addition to the allegedly illegal overdraft fees, Dennis says he suffered additional damages because of the bank violating their own insufficient fund fees policies.

According to the lawsuit, UCB insufficient fund policies state that multiple overdraft fees cannot incur on more than one item. However, the terms of the agreement does not state whether or not a single reattempt of the transaction will incur additional insufficient fund fees.

Dennis alleges that United Community Bank operates an “aggressive and predatory” overdraft protection program, which allegedly uses overdraft fees to maximize their profits. More specifically, he claims the bank’s overdraft protection policies are especially hard on people with lower income levels like Dennis whose monthly income is between $800 to $1,000.

People with lower income levels are more likely to overdraft their primary checking accounts and face overdraft fees, which may increase if the consumer does not pay the fee in time. This will most likely affect their income, with the bank imposing expensive fees that may not have been disclosed.

According to the claim, UCB charged Dennis $2,376 in allegedly illegal overdraft fees between January 2016 and April 2018, which had absorbed nearly all of his income during that time.

At this time, Dennis is seeking to call out the illegal practices of UCB regarding their overdrafts and other insufficient fund fees. These practices have allegedly caused him and other consumers to sustained serious financial loss from allegedly illegal overdraft fees.

This Illegal Overdraft Fees Class Action Lawsuit is Case No. 3:18-cv-00190-HSM-HBG, in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Tennessee, Knoxville Division.

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