[quote=“Itagaki,post:31,topic:38866"”]
You might want to considering reading the agreement(and any other related paperwork) you received when you first opened your account. If you don’t have it, the bank will be more than willing to supply you with another copy. It will cover most of your issues in this case… and it probably is your fault despite what you think.
Move to a bank where you can get a line of credit.
[/quote]
+1
I deal with this all the time. The software I write is used at over 600 credit unions nationwide and a whole bunch of them locally in WNY. It’s so much more complicated than “my balance at the ATM showed $XYZ” or “according to my checkbook ledger I have $ZYX”.
The one that really concerns me is your purchase and return at Sears. Purchases on debit cards are handled as two separate transactions, an auth and a post. The auth basically says, “Does he have $200, and if so, put $200 on hold”. The auth does not actually charge your account however. This allows the processing house (who ever handles the debit cards for your bank) to cancel the transaction very easily. The 2nd part of the transaction is the post, and that takes the hold that was placed earlier and changes it to a charge.
If Sears reverses the transaction before the auth gets changed to a post it’s immediate. However, once the transaction becomes a post there is no canceling it. They then have to send in a reversal which gets matched and the money credited back to your account. This is not instant.
So chances are you did overdraft your account. The best solution is to go somewhere that will allow you to setup an overdraft loan. Basically they give you an open ended loan for say $2000 that you can draw against at any time. The interest rates tend to be very high because the only time you’re supposed to take money from this loan is when you screw up and overdraft your checking. You then quickly pay the amount you overdrafted back on the loan plus the interest for how every many days you were negative, and all is well. It’s normally WAY cheaper than the NSF fee.