One Shortfall, Six Fees? how overdraft charges multiply

Two days short, and six fees

Your balance ran low for two days before payday. Several small payments went out during those two days.

You were charged a fee for each one. The fees are many times larger than the shortfall.

How one shortfall became a hundred dollars

1. A deposit landed a day later than you expected, because of a weekend or a holiday.
2. Several small payments were due in that gap.
3. Each one was allowed through rather than declined.
4. Each one was charged a fee.
5. The fees themselves pushed the balance further down.
6. More payments then failed against the lower balance.
7. What began as a shortfall of a few dollars ended as a bill for well over a hundred.

Why the fee is charged per transaction, not per day

The fee is charged per transaction, not per day of being overdrawn. Six small payments in a low-balance period cost six times as much as one large one.

Being allowed to overdraw is presented as a service. For small everyday payments it is usually worse than being declined, because the fee is many times the payment.

The balance shown in an app is not always the balance the fees are calculated against. Deposits can show as available before they clear, and holds can reduce the real balance without appearing.

The signal: the gap between money out and money in

The gap between money going out and money coming in, seen a few days ahead. Both sides are predictable — the payments repeat monthly, and the pay date is known.

Where Plenee fits

• It projects the balance forward. Known income, known outgoings, known dates. A

shortfall on the 28th is visible on the 21st, which is when moving a payment or a transfer is still free.

• It warns before the debit, not after the fee. After the fee, the only option left is

asking for it back.

• It totals the fees. Overdraft charges are designed to be forgettable individually.

A yearly total is not forgettable, and it is usually the number that makes someone change bank.

• It sees the pattern. Fees clustering in the same few days each month means the

problem is timing, not income, and timing is fixable.

One honest limit. Some of these complaints are about the bank's own displayed balance being wrong, or about the order transactions were processed in. Plenee reads the same balance you do, so where the bank's number is the problem, Plenee inherits it.

Getting fees refunded, and opting out

• Ask for the fees to be refunded. Banks reverse them routinely, especially the first

time and especially on a long-standing account.

• Ask to opt out of overdraft coverage on debit card purchases. Payments are then

declined instead of charged, which is usually cheaper.

• Ask what the fee cap is per day. Many banks have one, and exceeding it is a

correctable error.

• Move the due dates, not the income. Aligning payments to the day after payday

removes the gap entirely.

How short these complaints are

Overdraft and overdraft fees are about one in twenty-four bank account complaints.¹ These are the shortest complaints in the sample — people describe this one in about half the words they use for anything else.²