http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/14/investing/atm-overdraft-fees/index.html?section=money_topstories That's quite a large sum, how does everyone else read into this? Could be an interesting economic indicator, if you could track it over the years to look at consumer solvency. Some may see it as morally wrong, others as another method of enhancing the bottom line and shareholder value.
Similar to this other organizations are tacking on small fees that amount to mountains of cash. Recently, airlines have been charging fuel fees when oil barrel prices were really high, and now they have dropped they are still charging the same fees. Even though these fees were only put in place just to help deal with high fuel costs. The same goes for delivery services like UPS. The bottom line is these companies are crooks and they just want to tax the consumer no matter how well they are already doing. It's all about major profits. I guess that's the true face of some capitalism.
I was in a very sticky situation with Bank of America some years ago, and it's insane--they really do seem to have policies in place in which they profit off of other people's poverty. On the other hand, one could say that such policies reinforce the need for learning financial responsibility...but sometimes things get rough for some people, you just never really know.
Overdraft fee... meh who cares? You can choose not to allow it and voila, it's all taken care of! Except for when you don't have enough to pay automatic payments such as rent... in which case... well your bad. If you would pay rent in cash then surely you wouldn't try to pay a rent of $500 with $400 and expect it to work out just fine? ATM fees... again. If you are a customer of Bank A then why should Bank B have to provide a service for you for free? It makes no sense. Bank B is a business, not a charity. Now if a bank charges their own customers a fee for withdrawing from their own ATMs then that's just silly and I'd certainly look into changing banks. And since there are ATMs in literally every corner, would it really be that hard for people to withdraw from their own bank's ATM and we wouldn't need to make this a topic on a presidential level?
I think @crimsonghost747 has a point. I myself try as much as possible to look for my bank's ATM machine when I have to withdraw so I could avoid being charged from withdrawing on another bank's ATM. But if I really need cash and there's no choice at all but to withdraw from another bank then I would have to do it. I remember 2 days ago when my husband and I needed emergency cash and we only had limited time so we decided to withdraw from the only ATM machine available at the place. We had to bear being charged with $5 for that withdrawal transaction.