...of which, $256.00 is overdraft fees.
What happened was, I have a debit card linked to my checking account. I checked my balance every day, but there were some transactions that weren't processed until my balance was about twenty bucks. So, for a variety of purchases in the 2-5 dollar range, I'm paying overdraft fees of $32 each, changing to $64 (each transaction) for the most recent.
Should I manage my checking account such that I never get overdrafts? Absolutely; no argument from me on that.
Thing is, if I forget to record a couple transactions, somewhere (and, since I am human, this is virtually inevitable), I will pay out the nose for those mistakes.
Now, one strategy to deal with this would be, keep a cushion of a few hundred dollars in my account, to prevent this kind of thing from recurring.
The thing with that is, that presumes that I have some extra money to just "have a cushion," which I don't.
Like most Americans these days, I live paycheck to paycheck. I eat, buy clothes, gas and pay utilities, and there is nothing left.
Banks make huge amounts of money off of people like me (ALL of my similarly-paid co-workers have similar stories), and that just seems disgraceful and immoral.
There has got to be a better way. What can the Democrats do to defend people like me and my co-workers from pitiless banks?
[Update] Awesome comment by NotGeorgeWill in the comments that I so agree with:
[The] bottom line is that the game has changed significantly thanks to a loosening of banking rules.
Less competition equals fewer options for the consumers, which equals more leverage for banks, which equals higher fees.
It's easy to talk about fiscal responsibility in a banking environment that balances public and private interests better. We had a system along those lines after the Great Depression -- that system though has been systematically dismantled thanks to some heavy 9 figure lobbying efforts by the banking industry over the years.
These fees charged by banks are designed to beget more fees. Most of the public is not aware of the fact that the rules of the game have changed.
I don't expect the government to bail people out (even the banks themselves! as we saw to the tune of $500 billion during the S&L crisis -- we're probably going to see at least another $100 billion of federal handouts to big players in light of the fall out from the housing bubble). I also don't expect legislators to actively find ways to screw over ordinary Americans. When we're talking about the banking sector and the role of government -- that's effectively what's happened over the last couple decades. Legislators have struck a pretty shitty balance over the last several years between public and private interests.