Americans Spend $15 Billion in Bank Overdraft Fees. Here's the Best Way to Avoid Them
Paying any type of bank fee is never fun. Some fees are unavoidable, but others, like overdraft fees, can often be avoided with a little planning. Americans shelled out an estimated $15 billion in avoidable overdraft fees to banks last year, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
That figure is actually down from the $32 billion that was paid to banks for the same fees back in 2013. Part of that drop comes from new laws passed back in 2010 that say that a bank can only approve overdraft transactions if a customer has opted in to that service ahead of time.
These rules only apply to things like ATM withdrawals and debit card transactions though, so any automatic bill payments or written checks can still result in an overdraft and a fee averaging $34 per overdraft. And that $34 fee can balloon into a much higher amount if you have multiple overdraft payments coming out at the same time.
Source: Fool.com
