A new study from the Consumer Federation of America says that overdraft protection fees remain high and some institutions actually have slapped on additional penalties. What’s surprising is that this comes a year after the Federal Reserve enacted new rules to rein in exorbitant ODP fees, according to AOL DailyFinance.
“The Fed’s rule cut the number of people who participated in these programs, but for the people who do opt in, there’s no limit on the size of fees or the number of overdraft fees (banks) can charge,” says Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director with U.S. PIRG.
The median overdraft fee is $35, unchanged from last year, and customers can incur anywhere from three — at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) — to 10 — at Fifth Third Bank (FITB) — of these fees in a single day, according to the study. In the last year, BB&T (BBT) doubled the number of overdraft fees it charges per day to eight, while Regions Financial (RF) raised its daily limit from four to six per day, the survey found. Only TD Bank (TD) reduced the number of fees per day from six to five.