Customers are paying $35 overdraft fees for pending transactions and authorizations that may not necessarily overdraw their account once posted and paid to the merchant; furthermore, there may even be times when the transaction is never paid to the merchant such as in the case of a duplicate or canceled transaction yet the bank may have already charged the customer a $35 "overdraft paid" fee even though they did not or will not pay out any money.

This must stop now and it can only start with people like you and me who work too hard for our money to let any bank just take it whenever they want.  Be sure to check your bank statements to see if this has ever happened to you.  

The occurance of this unfair pracitce is not hard to find, just look at your TD account history or bank statements to see if you have paid any overdraft fees but your account never shows a negative balance.  Duplicate merchant transactions and authorizations for more than the transaction amount (such as at restaurants) can cause this to happen to you if they result in a negative available balance.  Unfortunately, even if you make a deposit to cover the amount of the transaction while it is still pending and beofre it posts and is paid to the merchant you will still be charged the $35 fee per transaction.  Unless of course the deposit is made before 6pm on the same day as the transaction.  Or 6pm the following business day if the transaction was made after 6pm on the prior business day or over the weekend.

I am more than fed up now because on several occasions I have been charged multiple $35 overdraft paid fees for transactions that TD Bank never had to pay.  The time has come to put an end to this once and for all.  For example, just the other day I made a transaction at Fed Ex for a 2nd day overnight package.  After scanning the package the clerk and I identifed a better shipping option and needed to update the airbill.  Insted of making multiple edits to the current airbill she instructed me to complete a new one and canceled out the original tracking number and transaction of $20.55.  She advised me that the original transaction was canceled effective immediately and would not post to my bank account.  The updated airbill change resulted in a fee reduction and the new cost was now $17.12.  At the time the transaction was completed I had $20.63 in my account which was enough to cover the purchase since Fed Ex would only be charging me $17.12.  

Yesterday, I checked my account  balance only to find that I had been charged three $35 "overdraft paid" fees totaling $105 because the original $20.55 transaction was still on hold/pending.  Based on the order in which most banks order transctions (higher to lowest so that they can charge overdraft fees) the $20.55 caused a dominoe effect resulting in the overdraft. This bothers me even more because I have multiple checking accounts with TD and usually just make the transfers when needed.  I didn't feel the need to make a transfer from my other account because there was enough money there to cover all of my pending transactions once they posted.  

Now, the dominoe effect might not bother me as much if these items had posted to my account and the bank actually paid out the money.  I think any reasonale person could understand if the merchant had been paid and would give the bank the benefit of doubt that they perhaps were not aware that the $20.55 was canceled and the overdraft in fact was not the fault of the customer because had the transaction dropped off instantly the account would never have been overdrawn.  However, this is not the case, especially since both of the transactions are still pending as of today (May 31, 2012) because FED Ex does not even submit pending credit tranasactions for payment until after the package is delivered.  In addition, they will not be capturing payment for the canceled transaction so it will just follow the banks normal process for pending transactions to drop off (upto 5 business days).  

So, if TD Bank has yet to pay out any money for either Fed Ex transaction because they are still pending and one is even invalid, why did they charge me $105 citing it as fees for three "overdraft paid"  items?

Join me in telling TD Bank to stop charging their hard working customers overdraft fees for pending transactions they never pay out.  We will not stand by and just let them take our money.  Enough is enough.