Overdraft Justice

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Here’s a tidbit of good news:

Wells Fargo & Co. should pay about $203 million to customers who say the bank manipulated debit-card transactions without their knowledge to increase revenue from overdraft fees, a federal judge ruled….Wells Fargo changed the way it treated customers’ daily debit transactions and cash withdrawals in December 2001, according to the lawsuit filed in 2007. Transactions with the highest dollar amount posted first, rather than in the order they occurred.

I’m pretty sure this is the result of a suit brought against Wachovia, which was purchased by Wells Fargo a couple of years ago. In any case, the practice of reordering debit card transactions has been fraudulent from the beginning, and I’m glad to see a judge doing the right thing here. (More about overdraft reordering here and here.) Hopefully the award won’t get knocked down by an appellate court.