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Regions Bank overdraft fees fine overview:
- Who: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has hit Regions Bank with an order to pay a fine of $191 million.
- Why: The bank illegally charged its customers overdraft fees on transactions that went through when customers had sufficient balances.
- Where: The Regions Bank fine is being issued by U.S. financial authorities.
Regions Bank has been fined $191 million by financial authorities for charging “surprise” overdraft fees on debit card transactions and ATM withdrawals.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the fine in a Sept. 28 consent order.
“The Bank committed unfair and abusive acts and practices when it charged overdraft fees on transactions that had a sufficient balance at the time the Bank authorized the transaction but then later settled with an insufficient balance,” the bureau wrote.
The CFPB slammed the bank’s actions, stating that, from Aug. 2018 through July 2021, Regions Bank charged the fees, even though it knew government agencies had found those charges to be illegal.
“From August 2018 through July 2021, Respondent generated at least $141 million in Authorized-Positive Overdraft Fees. These fees substantially harmed consumers,” the CFPB said.
Regions Bank must repay customers, and pay $50M penalty
During this time, Regions Bank was charging consumers overdraft fees for debit-card purchases and ATM withdrawals even when they had enough money in their accounts when they made those purchases or withdrawals, if the transaction later settled with insufficient funds.
“[Regions Bank] could have stopped charging these fees sooner, but instead the Bank continued to charge them for years while it pursued changes to generate alternative fee revenue that would fully offset its expected revenue loss from eventually eliminating the Authorized-Positive Overdraft Fees,” the CFPB said.
“Ultimately, the Bank adopted revenue negative changes that included eliminating the Authorized-Positive Overdraft Fees in July 2021.”
As part of the consent order with the agency, the bank must refund the $141 million to affected customers and pay an additional $50 million civil penalty.
“Regions Bank raked in tens of millions of dollars in surprise overdraft fees every year, even after its own staff warned that the bank’s practices were illegal,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement.
“Too often, large financial firms make a calculation that continuing to break the law is more profitable than following it. We have more work to do to change this mentality,” Chopra said.
Regions Bank was also in the news in 2019 amid reports that homeowners who had paid off their FHA Regions Bank mortgage loans may have been unlawfully charged interest on their balances.
What do you think of this Regions Bank overdraft fees fine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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71 thoughts onRegions Bank fined $191M for charging unlawful ‘surprise’ overdraft fees
Region bank owe us 10,000 and want pay my number is 3343430256 jeromepettiway
How do I join regions lawsuit
This is exactly what happened to me. I would get overdraft fees constantly and no one in the bank or customer service could tell me why but always said they couldn’t refund it. One time they gave me a partial refund but still couldn’t tell me where or when my account went negative to have a fee. i banked with them for maybe 8 years before finally having to just lock my card when I had covid and didn’t work for 3 weeks somehow getting close to 800 worth of fees and they wouldn’t let me close it ( obviously i know you have to have a 0 balance to close ) but it was all fees and when i called, they removed 200 for whatever reason and sent the rest to collections which i had to pay over time. FOR FEES I still don’t know how they came up with. I swapped to Chime and ive had $0 in fees over the past two years.
Add me regions is awful
How would I receive my overdraft fee returned wen should we see different in our balance
I have been charged so many Overdraft fees by region’s I have banked with Regions for years
add me
My Bank is Flag Star Bank and they do the same things. They take $37 for each day OD, sometimes twice, as my savings account is attached for overdraft protection. They take money out of my savings, then charge an OD fee to my checking. Today, the bank called us to see if we wanted to open a bank charge card. When we declined, she asked why not. She seemed irritated, but I see it as another way to get our money. We have had to change bank accounts with them 4 times due to hacking. Could someone at the bank be doing the hacking.
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I have been charged so many overdraft fees and refunded only a few by Regions. Some were overdrafts because of the order they put them through, or for paid item fees that they didn’t pay and returned which in return cost me more money by having them returned from the individual company.