my bank charged me a $22 fee for only having $14 in my bank account 😭
Thursday, 20 Mar 2025
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it’s expensive being poor
Time to change banks!
Poor tax. Try being born a millionaire next time.
Yeah, it’s shitty. Years back I had an account that had sat under their minimum threshold for a few months. They charged me a $20 low balance fee. That ended up overdrafting me. Then they tried charging a $35 overdraft fee.
How the fuck can you be that evil? It’s already obvious that I don’t have any money, why are you trying to charge me $55 just for being poor?
So yeah, it’s a poor tax. It affects us far more than any tax a billionaire could ever experience.
In Canada, one of Trudeau’s last acts before leaving office was a regulatory order to cap these fees at $10 per 48 hours, and ban them if your shortfall is less than $10. Bless him.
This is more than mildly infuriating. Getting called poor by the bank by being made poorer 😭
Get ready for this stuff to get worse with the elimination of the CFPB.
NSF is not a fee for having a low balance. Something tried to withdraw money, more than you had. Call the bank if you didn’t make this transaction. Even if you did, call and ask for it to be waived. And you should probably close the account
This happened to me when I had spent nothing for months and had $2 in my account. Now I’m in overdraft for no reason.
Sounds like Wells Fargo.
Need X amount in X account
Need X transactions a month
Need X to even open X account
This shit should be illegal, but unfortunately they got you in the fine print.
Switch banks immediately.
Edit: Why are these transactions a Half-YEAR apart? You only kept 14$ in your account for that time?
NSF fees are returned item /declined payment fees. You tried to spend more money than you had in the account.
Just call your bank and ask them to close the account if you’re not going to use it.
oof what bank to avoid pls?
https://youtu.be/P3jLufZx3IM
This is what the CFPB is/was for. It’s hard to keep track of which federal agencies are still operating.
from google:
“The [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1QCTP_enUS1142US1142&cs=1&sca_esv=0d43da4d4cf24184&sxsrf=AHTn8zoeHFfeV_bt0PzLMO-suRLHiBaWjA%3A1742429090915&q=Consumer+Financial+Protection+Bureau+%28CFPB%29&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiT3sGXrpeMAxXTLUQIHXgrMrkQxccNegQIAhAB&mstk=AUtExfCiWWNy6AuWmIzfT5sjpxqmqzW3F3gELAjNLXPxgAk1BZ-Q3vkBjnEp4OPCKoC_9tZwaQ20RnG49QBSfd-Gvz82AViwR_YnszOl1XydHuR1D360KO3AkCRE39vV-JeUjeVLAiwXfZd3t3jdvLe6TZqMjB4n8FWtKMX5APZx2Pt5pA8&csui=3) finalized a rule on [overdraft fees](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1QCTP_enUS1142US1142&cs=1&sca_esv=0d43da4d4cf24184&sxsrf=AHTn8zoeHFfeV_bt0PzLMO-suRLHiBaWjA%3A1742429090915&q=overdraft+fees&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiT3sGXrpeMAxXTLUQIHXgrMrkQxccNegQIAhAC&mstk=AUtExfCiWWNy6AuWmIzfT5sjpxqmqzW3F3gELAjNLXPxgAk1BZ-Q3vkBjnEp4OPCKoC_9tZwaQ20RnG49QBSfd-Gvz82AViwR_YnszOl1XydHuR1D360KO3AkCRE39vV-JeUjeVLAiwXfZd3t3jdvLe6TZqMjB4n8FWtKMX5APZx2Pt5pA8&csui=3) for large financial institutions, effective October 1, 2025, capping fees at $5 per transaction or the cost of administering the overdraft program, whichever is lower, and requiring institutions to treat overdrafts as credit, according to the CFPB. ”
Oh by the way guess who will get rid of CFPB so the banks can profit more?
I can’t believe how many incorrect comments there are about this.
The fee is listed as NSF which means they overspent and the bank decided not to pay for an item that was trying to post. If it was because of a minimum balance, the fee would list as “monthly service fee” or something like that.
Also, nsf is different than an od fee. For reference, an overdraft fee is where the account also goes negative because of an item but the bank decides to pay it anyway and then charges a fee for it.
OP needs to be careful and add money into account if they can because for items that get NSF, the company of the rejected item might try again.
As a former banker 95% of these are due to the person being in a higher level account that has extra benefits but requires a minimum balance. The OP needs to talk to their bank and get moved to the free account
I’m glad my bank doesn’t charge monthly fees. I can also take money out using any atm for free.
Non sufficient funds fee is if something tries to debit from the account and there isn’t enough money. Low balance fee is what some banks have for balances below a certain level.
The fact that there weren’t any fees between November when the penny went in and months later when the fee was debited leads me to believe it was not a low balance fee as that would either be monthly or quarterly(this was neither).
In banking there are two methods for banks to handle non sufficient debit items: “pay all” and “pay none”. In a “pay all” system the debit will post to the account regardless of the balance in the account not having enough. When the decision-making staff member decides it should be returned for not enough funds a credit is posted back into the account. In a “pay none” system if a debit will draw the account negative it doesn’t post to the account until the decision-making staff member decides it should draw the account negative otherwise they return it and only debit the fee.
It looks almost like this bank is a pay none bank.
I would recommend reaching out to find out if it was a low balance fee or an over draft/non sufficient funds fee. If it was non sufficient funds ask what tried to come through. If you don’t recognize the item dispute the transaction and fee with the bank. If it was an electronic transaction (and your have a US Bank) there are regulations that require the bank to credit back the fee on fraudulent transactions.
And honestly if you have an account with only $14 in it that you haven’t used for almost 5 months it’s really not worth keeping as you are open to fraud and fees.
Fuck Banks, find a Credit Union. I ditched banks 40 years ago, absolutely no regrets.
Fk me it’s bad in Australia but what banks get away with in the US is on another level
What bank? Name and shame. I will say Chase (demons that they are) DO reverse fees when I’ve called them up to complain about them.
Eat the rich.
After you handle this I *strongly* suggest moving to a local Credit Union for your primary banking. They generally don’t have minimum account balances on direct deposit accounts, and often have preferential accounts for low balance accounts like yours that also waive fees (but may not provide any interest as the “gotcha” but in your situation how much interest would you expect to earn anyway?)
One that I was a member of because they offered a great rate for a car loan even kicked back some of my auto loan interest as a dividend as part of their annual member dividend payments.
This looks like some sort of savings account. Most of them require some sort of minimum balance or they start charging you a monthly “upkeep” fee. Close the account and use checking only.
That’s what you get for being poor /s
Banks tell you these things in advance, don’t want a minimum monthly balance fee? Look for a bank or credit union that doesn’t have this it’s really not that hard
Drop them as your bank. In this day and age there is no reason to have minimum balance requiremnets.
If there is a credit union in your area, switch to them, and if not, there are national credit unions that operate throughout the country.
and when I say drop them, I mean, walk into a bank location, and close all accounts with them
TRUMP DID THAT
They don’t even let the poor live
I used to be with a bank that would charge fees like this, and if it sent your account into the red, they’d continue taking money through fees until you brought it back into the black. I could never get back on top because of it. Eventually I just went to a different bank, changed all my payment details to the new account. Never another fee again. Also couldn’t close the other account because it was in the red, so no idea what’s happening with it now. It’s been maybe 12 years now, so I’m assuming they just closed it or something and accepted their “loss” (is it really a loss when it costs them nothing to charge me for not having any money?)
That should be illegal.
You know, the account isn’t just sitting there. It costs money to operate, and your minimums are provided when you sign up. Call your bank and switch to a free checking account instead of complaining.
A Biden era rule was set to start in October 2025 that would cap or remove the bank overdraft fees which would prevent the fee in the image. This change would be overseen by the CFPB, the organization that Trump now wants to eliminate.
Just thought important for you to know.
This is why I switched to third party banking (like Venmo). 🥴 Easier to use and they don’t punish me for being poor. I got sick of my bank charging me for having only a little bit of money in my account. Plus they repeatedly charged me $5 as a “bad address fee” because they couldn’t send letters to my address… which they informed me about by successfully sending letters to my address, so I don’t know what the fuck their problem was.
Don’t get me wrong, this is really shitty, stupid, and should be abolished.
But it also always surprises me when people are surprised by this. Like, you signed the contract for the account. And while this might not be true in every state every bank I have worked for has the fee’s disclosed upfront. You agreed to it.
I am not saying “You agreed to it so its not wrong” but, on the other hand, you agreed to it so I find it hard to complain.
It’s a NSF fee. Did you try to buy something that the payment bounced?