Consumers are filing suit over banks’ and debit card companies’ practice of ordering transactions from largest to smallest, hoping to hit consumers with sky-high overdraft fees and penalties on the smallest charges.
Instead of ordering your debit card purchases in the order of your transactions, banks and debit card companies have come up with a different scheme. The banks will process your charge from largest to smallest. The banks hope by processing the largest charge first, it will drain your account of cash — ensuring you get hit with high overdraft fees and penalties on the remaining transactions. If the transactions were processed chronologically, only the last, large charge would result in an overdraft fee.
Consumers and advocacy groups are outraged over the practice and are actively petitioning the government to put a stop to it. Under pressure, last month Chase bank stopped its illicit ordering of debit card transactions, but other banks continue to hit consumers with myriad overdraft fees and costs by ordering transactions from largest to smallest.
For more information, to learn about your rights, or to participate in litigation against this unlawful ordering of your debit card transactions, please call 1-619-573-1700.