When In Doubt – Blame The Bank

Regulators have recently erupted with pronouncements regarding the alleged "abusive" practice of banks charging multiple bounced check charges when a check written by a depositor is returned unpaid, re-presented, and returned a second time. Both the New York State Department of Financial Services and the FDIC have recently suggested that banks that charge multiple insufficient funds fees may be engaged in an abusive or deceptive practice. The regulators fail to note that re-presentment is outside the control of the drawee bank and they ignore that overdrawing an account is almost always the depositor's fault.

Each bank is entitled to its own policy on whether to charge no NSF fee, one NSF fee or multiple NSF fees, provided that it makes proper disclosure. Even the Department of Financial Services has confirmed this when it said in Part 32 of its regulations that the decision of how much to charge as an NSF fee "is a business decision to be made by each bank