Remember how I totally mis-managed my whole budget last week and overdrew our account? I thought I would still be okay because of my overdraft protection. I think I just figured out why I wasn’t.
“Under new Federal Reserve rules you must now give us advance permission to pay debit card purchases and ATM transactions that exceed your available account balance.
Without this permission, those transactions will be declined. With your permission, those transactions could be paid according to our standard overdraft practices …. This permission is known as “Opting-in”, and you must opt-in by August 15, 2010.”
This notice came from the banking institution that holds the mortgage for our rental home. I’ll need to check with USAA, which holds our regular accounts, to see what their “opting-in” might entail.
Interestingly, neither of the customer service representatives that helped me out of my bind mentioned this new regulation. The second one was downright puzzled as to why the ODP (overdraft protection) didn’t kick in; she mused that possibly it was because my primary overdraft account was already under $100 and the secondary was a credit card. It really didn’t make much sense at the time, but I was in no position to argue. Neither did it really matter in the moment: I just needed money. I didn’t care how she got it for me.
I wonder if the banks are still working on training and notifying their employees of the new regulations? Or if it’s just up to us, the clients and consumers, to educate ourselves?
Regardless, consider yourself educated. Hopefully you won’t have to learn this the hard way like I did.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
You know what? I got a notice like this on a bank account that we have too. I haven’t officially opted in yet but I need to go ahead and do it. Thanks for the reminder!
[Reply]
jolyn Reply:
April 16th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Do you have USAA? I still need to check with them about their policy…
[Reply]