Bank must defend its accounting in overdraft penalty case

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted November 30, 2021 10:44 AM

Wanda Sue Butcher alleged South State Bank violated a federal rule (“Regulation E”) when she signed up for “overdraft protection” by failing to disclose that it used an accounting technique (“the available balance bookkeeping method”) as an excuse for routinely slapping overdraft fees on customers who actually had enough money in their accounts to pay for transactions.As part of a class-action in South Carolina, Butcher and another named plaintiff offered this illustration of how the bank’s bookkeeping maneuver works:• A …

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