Banks Paying Billions in Overdraft Fee Class-Action Settlements

By Avalon
theintelhub.com
November 30, 2012

Well, finally some good news that has been kept from the public at-large.

The Major Banks, including TD Bank, JPMorgan, RBS Citizens Bank, Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America have recently offered massive settlements onClass-Action Lawsuits over Overdraft Fees and other criminal activity – need I say more…

The most recent settlement is by TD Bank, who has offered a settlement of $62 million.

Quoting from Yahoo! Finance:

The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) is the latest to join the ever-growing list of banks facing litigation over misconduct and malpractices concerning overdraft fees.

The bank has agreed to pay $62 million in settlement of a lawsuit filed against it by its customers accusing it of unreasonable assessment and collection of overdraft fees.

However, the settlement requires approval from the U.S. District Judge in Miami.

Background

The customers accused TD Bank of regularly dealing with transactions pertaining to debit cards in the order of magnitude of the transaction rather than the chronological order.

The intentional malpractices resulted in faster negative balances in customers’ accounts, leading to a larger number of overdrawn transactions, each of which then became chargeable. Consequently, overdraft fees piled up in excess.

Moreover, TD Bank violated the U.S. Federal Reserve’s regulation of obtaining customer approval before charging any overdraft fees.

Other banks have offered similar settlements. Of particular interest in the Yahoo! Finance article posted Tue, May 15, 2012 5:55 PM EDT are:

 Citizens Bank, a unit of The Royal Bank of Scotland Groupplc (RBS) has agreed to disburse $137.5 million to settle the lawsuit filed against it by the customers, accusing it of fraudulent transaction entries to procure larger overdraft fees.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) was asked to pay $110 million to clear up a similar lawsuit filed against it.

This is good news for consumers, however, both the RBS and JPMorgan settlements are still subject to approval of the District Judge in the case.

According to the Yahoo! Finance article, in 2011:

Commerce Bancshares Inc. (CBSH) paid $18.3 million while Bank of America Corporation (BAC) shelled out $410 million to the customers to resolve similar claims.

And,

in 2010, Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) was ordered to repay $203 million by the U.S. District Court of Northern California to recompense customers who had sued the company for charging unfair overdraft fees.

For more information on this story and the banks mentioned, Yahoo! Finance provides links to Zacks Investment Research reports on the individual banks

• Read the Full Research Report on TD

• Read the Full Research Report on JPM

• Read the Full Research Report on WFC

• Read the Full Research Report on RBS

• Read the Full Research Report on BAC

• Read the Full Research Report on CBSH

A great article covering the Criminal Banking Cartels activity is an article onForbes, by Halah Touryalai, Forbes Staff, who goes into great detail on the practices of these banks.

Grossman, Roth, one of the the law firms handling the suits says bank overdraft banks charged consumers nearly $40 billion in overdraft fees during 2009 alone. (In 2011, the figure is estimated at around $30 billion.) From the law firm:One particular part of the article is reproduced here — the article is highly recommended reading.

Not content with the fees they were getting, some banks adopted a practice of re-sequencing their customers’ debit card, ATM and check card transactions from highest to lowest dollar amount (as opposed to the order in which the transactions actually occurred).  This enabled these banks to increase their overdraft fee revenues, and thus their profits, at the expense of their customers.

Source:

Shady Overdraft Fees Could Cost Banks Over $1 Billion

RESEARCH:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/07/02/shady-overdraft-fees-could-cost-banks-over-1-billion/

Court approves overdraft fee settlement for TD Bank, Citizens Financial

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/court-approves-overdraft-fee-settlement-for-td-bank-citizens-financial/article4556940/

TD Bank to Settle Overdraft Charges

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/75194/td-bank-to-settle-overdraft-charges

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is an American multinational banking corporation of securities, investments and retail. It is the largest bank in the United States by assets.^[2] It is a major provider of financial services, with assets of $2 trillionand according to Forbes magazine is the world’s second largest public company based on a composite ranking.^[3] The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is one of the largest hedge funds in the United States.^[4] It was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co.^[5]

Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase

*****

Avalon is an investigative journalist and writer for theintelhub.com a popular alternative news website.

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