Wainwright Bank Stole My Grocery Money

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

After almost 10 years of doing business with Wainwright, I finally jumped ship this week after they charged me almost $100 in overdraft fees - even though my statement shows no overdraft at all.

As I said in my open letter to them, this is not just my issue. Banks are poised to rake in over $38 billion in overdraft fees this year, and Congress has just approved new regulations making the kind of sneaky accounting and overdraft "protection" racket Wainwright is using illegal. Those regulations haven't gone into effect yet, but I would have hoped our neighborhood "progressive" bank would be ahead of the curve in this important social justice issue.

I'm disappointed that a local bank that advertises itself as "banking on values" would treat its customers this way. It's a deceptive and predatory practice that traps financially marginalized people in a painful cycle of debt they can't get out of. Shame on you, Wainwright.

Comments

Did you really think banks...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Started pushing debit cards so that customers would not overuse their credit cards? The only reason why debit cards were pushed was to get these overdraft fees.

Re: Did you really think banks...

[cos]

But debit cards have been around since well before banks started adopting the overdraft fee strategy of making money.

P.S. I started asking my bank for debit cards a few years before they existed. I would ask my local bank rep whenever I saw her, which was every few months. Eventually when they were about to debut this new "debit card" thing, she told me and I signed up, which means I was probably one of the first debit card holders BayBank ever had, and IIRC other banks mostly didn't have them yet.

Re: Did you really think banks...

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

BayBank? holy cats, I haven't heard that name in years.

Re: Did you really think banks...

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, let's go down the old bank road, shall we? :-D

Baybank, Bank of Boston, Shawmut....

Re: Did you really think banks...

[ron_newman]

Almost all of the bank offices in Davis Square have changed names since I got here, even if only subtly:

BayBank -> BankBoston -> Fleet -> Bank of America
Shawmut -> Fleet -> Sovereign Bank
Somerset Savings Bank-> USTrust -> Citizens Bank
Winter Hill Federal Savings -> Winter Hill Bank
Central Cooperative Bank -> Central Bank

The only one that's stayed the same is Middlesex Federal Savings.

Re: Did you really think banks...

[cos]

Well, originally, I started that account with BayBank Middlesex, back when BayBank wasn't a company, but a federation of several independent smaller banks, to allow them to share ATMs (there weren't any national ATM networks at the time) and make it easy for people to move accounts to other banks in the federation. They later all merged into one company called BayBank.

Re: Did you really think banks...

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

yeah, i've never actively changed banks, but since i've been in MA i've had baybank, bank of boston/bankboston, fleet, and now BoA.
Crazy