How much do you have to put on your debit card until it’s rejected?

September 11, 2009 – 12:24 pm – No Comment

While it’s been a few years since I found myself angry about overdraft fees in my own bank account, after reading a few articles on the internet about other people incurring fees (and accumulating them over the course of a few days) I have once again found myself angry at banks for allowing people to incur these fees.

First of all, I know that banks make most of their money on fees that they charge their customers. I also know that it is a bit of an unsavory business practice to allow a customer to incur fees on top of fees all over the same few days.

How much do you have to put on your debit card until your bank decides that it’s time to start rejecting the card?

It works with prepaid cards, and I believe that debit cards should also work this way…If there isn’t enough money on the card it is declined. If there is enough money on the card, the transaction goes through flawlessly.

Perhaps banks think that they are doing their customers some kind of favor by allowing customers to get the insufficient funds fee on their bank account rather than just being declined in line at the grocery store.

You never hear stories about people getting NSF or overdraft fees on big purchases like the weekly grocery trip (which can be quite expensive for some) or even for purchases for over $20. It seems like every time I hear a story about someone getting overdraft fees, it’s typically on a cup of coffee or something small and under $10.

However, I do know someone who was allowed to overdraft their account by $500. This is why I have to ask the question, At what point does the bank say, “Wait…you can’t do that.”

Overdraft fees are stupid.