Originally posted by red g jacks
****ing banks. how can they expect me to keep track of how much money i have? don't they realize i'm too busy living beyond my means.
This would make it harder to live beyond your means. That's a good thing for people who forget (which happens to everyone, at one point or another. Just that some have more padding to "forget."
, don't plan well (which is most of America.), or experience an unforeseen event or mistake (I'll describe mine, below.)
I maxed out a card to consolidate my debt. Benefit greatly outweighed the negative impact on my credit. I have special overdraft protection that will, instead of charging me a banking overdraft fee, simply charge the transaction to the card. I had some bullshit happen a few months ago that actually caused me to have to take advantage of that overdraft. (I got double charged on something that was a little over $400.) the overdraft protection/transfer thingie kicked in. Had I still be maxed out or just made a couple of payments, that overdraft thing would have cost me a LOT of money in charges. (Cause a bunch of smaller transactions that occurred AFTER the double charged one.)
Each of those tiny transactions, had my card still be maxed, would have cost me HUNDREDS of dollars. F*ck. That. I would have my bank, explained it and they would have said "get a refund from the organization that overcharged." I would have called the org. that double charged me, and they would have said, "we are only responsible for our double charge, but here's a coupon/$20 gift-card for your troubles."
In other words, I was really really close to getting f*cked over. Had I had some sort of rule in place that would reject the charge to overdraft, I would have caught the a**hole that put the transaction through twice, and adverted a huge mess. I'm no where even CLOSE to being frivolous with my money. I keep really good track of all my funds, I budget for just about everything, and I have a rainy day fund. None of that would have helped me had that double charge occurred shortly after I did my debt consolidation.
But, if I could have told my bank to NOT do overdraft on the credit card or bank account, I would have been safe. Currently...I didn't have that option.