Overdraft is billed as a courtesy from the bank to allow spending for money you don’t have. They charge big for that flexibility. While the transaction goes through successfully, it requires rapid attention else issues and negative balance (and fees) cascade into real hassle.
What Happened?
I do monthly finances as the end of the month. This typically involves near-zeroing out the shared budget to reimburse expenses paid throughout the month.
Before we added funds in at the beginning of April, there was a Venmo transaction which erroneously used the shared account instead of a personal account. Cue overdraft. $10 fee for a $9.36 overdraft.
As soon as the Bank of America email came my way (the day after the overdraft, so helpful…) I quick transferred $100 to return the balance to positive and prevent any future issues. While I check my accounts frequently, I did not check it same-day and correct this issue to prevent the fee from triggering at all. That meant I was left with a $10 fee and some general annoyance
What was the resolution?
Bank of America is my primary banking relationship, and typically is responsive to escalations/asks. Doing that by the phone, though is a hassle. When I saw a chat agent option pop up, I crossed my fingers that I could have this whole conversation and refund without lifting the phone.
SUCCESS. The conversation took about 5 minutes and was able to refund my (appropriately charged but bad) $10 overdraft fee. The agent also provided additional information about overdraft coverage for linked accounts to prevent this entirely in the future.
Overall annoying to have to deal with, but at least there was no true financial cost of a minor error.
Takeaway here is to pay close attention to your accounts, and not to hesitate to ask for help (and a refund!)
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