Chase Does Us All A Favor, Nixes Overdraft Fees For Purchases Under $5

Remember when you began vehemently swearing upon realizing that before you used your bank card to buy a $3 iced coffee, you were in the red already, making that a $37 iced coffee and overdrawing your account even more? That’ll change for Chase customers, as the bank announced its going to do its customers a solid by dropping overdraft fees for purchases under $5.

Starting July 22, JPMorgan Chase is ditching that fee, in an attempt to eliminate multiple overdraft fees for small purchases, reports the New York Times.

“Good news, we’re making changes to help you avoid fees,” Chase told customers in a recent notice with their statements. “For purchases of $5 or less that overdraw your account, we’ll no longer charge you an insufficient funds fee, returned item fee, or overdraft protection transfer fee.

In March 2010, Chase changed its overdraft policy so that there would be no overdraft fees applied if a customer’s overall balance was only overdrawn by $5 or less at the end of the business day, so five must be their magic number.

The reason Chase is going ahead with this policy is because of settlement negotiations from a case resolved in February over how it and other big banks process debits and and charged overdraft fees.

Your turn, fellow big banks. The only other bank thus far to have a similar policy is SunTrust, apparently, which will not assess overdraft fees on purchases of $4.99 or less.

*Thanks for the tip, Howard!

Chase to Drop Overdraft Fees for Purchases of $5 or Less [New York Times]

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