You're listening to Comedy Central. We all deal with things in life that are just annoying, like brain freezes or looking for parking or having to trim your nails all the time. Yeah, because apparently it's cool when Wolverine grows them out, but when I do it as gross. I mean, I don't understand how that's fair. But nothing is worse than when little annoyances also cost you money, which means few things in life are more annoying than overdraft fees.
You know, And we've all dealt with this ship before. You accidentally spend more than you have in your bank account, so now the bank is charging even more money that you don't have. Even if you go over by like a couple of dollars, your bank might hit you with a thirty five dollar fee, which makes no sense. Bitch. If I had the thirty five dollars, I wouldn't be overdrafting, would I. I mean, if there has to be a penalty, it should be a nonmonetary one, because you know the
person doesn't have the money. They should be like, all right, you gotta lick the a TM screen or something like that, but not money. And this problem has gotten so out of hand that Democrats in Congress are now work on a bill to rein in overdrow fees, which is good because people are just about at them breaking point. This is just wild. A woman leapt over a bank encounter while arguing with the teller. She didn't want to pay overdraft fees, so she went over the counter. It all
happened here inside this Chase Bank in Baufort. In the video, a woman is heard shouting at a bank teller. Then the woman climbs over the counter and demands her money. The bank teller backs up, and that's when the woman steals seven fifty dollars from a cash box. Okay, on the one hand, yes, a bit of an overreaction, But on the other hand, he also kind of rooting for her, right. I mean, that's how much we all hate overdrop fees. Like watching this is a bystander must have been so confusing.
It's just like, hello, I'd like to report a robbery. Yeah, who's being robbed? Well, to be honest, both of the match a you know what, actually it's balance never mind, and I know what you're thinking right now. Look, I hate overdroft fees too, but I'm not pole vaulting over a counter over thirty five dollars. Well, once you know more about how these fees work, you just might. So let's find out where these fees came from and how
they screw you over. In another edition of If You don't Know, Now You know so, I spot at the beginning in the nies, a bunch of consultants pitched banks on overdraft fees, a cool new way to squeeze money out of their beloved customers. And as evil as it is, you've got to hand it to them, it's definitely creative. Yeah.
In fact, I bet the executive who came up with this idea blew everyone's minds, which is, like, you know how we usually take money from people who have money, Well what if we also took money from people who don't have money. Oh my god, you've done it, Jenkins cocaine for everyone. Yeah. When they came up with this idea, they didn't call them overdraft fees known. The phrase they
used for it was overdraft privileged programs. Yeah, because you see, customers would now have the privilege of paying extra for being broke. And you gotta admit that's hella spin right there, right, They should They should do that with everything in life. They should hire these same people just to give your excuses like, no, she didn't dump my ass, she enrolled me in a masturbating a loan privileged program. Everything's great,
I'm doing great, I'm doing real good. So you see what happens is basically banks frame it's like they're doing you a favor by allowing you to take out extra money. In fact, just listen to what one woman says she was told by her bank after she got hit with these overdraft fees again and again without realizing it was dollars overdrawn funds. Obviously we're not there. They had never been there there over a period of time. Why did
you continue to accept the charges? Their response was, you have been such a good streamer for all these years. We did not want to embarrass you at the check at counter. Wow. Wow, you gotta be kidding me. The bank kept charging overdraft fees because they didn't want to embarrass this lady. Really, they didn't want to cause any embarrassment. Everyone knows people value money over embarrassment. That's the only reason that reality shows exist. Are you kidding me? Also,
you know that explanation is bullshit. Because it's impossible to get embarrassed in front of a checkout counterworker. Okay, they've already seen it all. Yeah, they've seen every single one of us buying fifteen bags of Cheetos and we say it's for a super Bowl party, but they know it's July.
So the banks say this is simply a service they're extending to their customers, but the truth is they spend a lot of effort manipulating you into paying those fees, Like, for instance, did you guys even know that they're totally optional? Do you know that? Yeah? Totally optional. Ever since ruling by the FED, all reserved customers have to opt in to overdraw fees. And now you're probably thinking, wait, I
never did that, but you probably did. Yeah, you just didn't realize that's what you were doing when the bank gave me a stack of papers to sign, because nobody actually reads that ship, right, Most people see the size of the agreements and you're just like, I'll just wait for HBO to turn into a mini series and I'm not gonna read. That. Kind of gets worse because once the banks trick you into signing up for overdraw fees, some of them will literally reorder the events of your
life to make sure that you pay the most. Some large banks will manipulate the sequence of customer transactions to draw more overdraft fees. This is how it works. Take Joe. Joe has one dollars in his checking account. He buys breakfast on his way to work, paying for it with his debit card. Joe next fills up his gas tank. Later, he buys lunch, and then an afternoon cup of coffee. Finally, on his way home, he stops at the supermarket to
buy groceries. The last purchase leaves Joe's account overdrawn by fifteen dollars, but rather than charge him one overdraft fee, his bank rearranges his purchases from highest to lowest and charges him three overdraft fees. By clearing the highest purchases first, banks are able to get to the overdraft quicker, thereby
maximizing profits. God damn, that is evil. It's bad enough that these billion dollar corporations are charging poor people overdraft fees, but to make it worse, they're manipulating the numbers so they can charge even more. Yeah, the third purchase came before the first purchase. That's not how you count, right, these banks are robbing people or they learned numbers from Star Wars. It goes four five, six, one to three seven.
That's just math. That's the math. And this is another example of how corporations can commit crimes that none of us can. All right, because this, this is this is theft. But they will be like, oh no, it's it's just the way, No, it's theft. No individual can get away with rearranging the sequence of time. You try this, every single one of you in thisstroom, you try it, you try it at home. Yeah, try stealing something from the store.
Then when they catch and be like no, no, no, I know I took it today, but I already paid for it next week now, if you'll excuse me. But like most evil plans, there's big money in what the banks are doing. In fact, they collected more than eight billion dollars in overdraft fees last year, just overdrow fees. Yeah. One bank made so much money off of overdraft fees the ceo actually named his boat the Overdraft. Yeah, and that's rubbing it in. That's like if Elvis had a
boat called Black People's Music. I mean, I guess that's how you got rich. But maybe you don't advertise it a whole Imagine that on your boats. It's like ship like, where's the Somemley Pirate when you need one, you know, just for him to be like, look at me, look at me. This is a better name for a boat. Look at me. Now. The good news is some banks seem to be getting the message that customers and Congress
are fed up with these fees. Bank of America and TD Bank are settling major lawsuits, while some banks have started ending the overdraft programs voluntarily, which is good, but until Congress posses is low protecting customers from the most egregious overdraft policies. We figured that there was an opening in the market for a bank you can really trust. Sick of over draft fees that drag you into debt. Wish there was a bank that treated you like an adult.
Well now there is no you're broke, introducing broke Bank. At broke Bank, we're not going to let you think you have money and then surprise you with an overdraft fee. When you're broke, we'll let you know seven dollars for coffee. Just get a tap water? Is it embarrassing a little insulting? Definitely, But we're committed to honesty, like really committed. Come on, we both know you didn't win the lottery. Just walk away. What's in your wallet? Nothing? Are you in a jet stable?
You only got twelve dollars and you need that for sure. With Broke Bank, you'll never get tricked into opting in for hidden bees. The only thing you'll get from us is the truth about how poor your broad gasses. You can scream at me all you want, but at least I'm not charging over draft fees. Broke Thank you deserve honesty. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ears editions. Subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content, and stream
full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast