(MENAFN Press) (EMAILWIRE.COM, December 01, 2012 ) New York, NY
The lawyers working with ClassAction.org are investigating potential claims on behalf of Cathay Bank customers who suspect they were unfairly charged overdraft fees after they overdrew their accounts. Many of the nation's largest banks have been hit with lawsuits alleging that they unfairly assessed overdraft fees after they processed their customer's transactions in a highest-to-lowest sequence, rather than in the order in which they were made; this caused consumers' accounts to be drained more quickly, allowing the bank to maximize the number of overdraft fees they could charge, according to the allegations. It is believed that some local and regional banks may be engaging in similar practices. If you are a customer of Cathay Bank in California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Texas or Washington, the attorneys working with ClassAction.org would like to hear from you to assist in their investigation. To have your unfair overdraft complaints reviewed, at no cost to you, please visit http://www.classaction.org/unfair-overdraft-protection-fees.html today.
The practice of transaction sorting, which has allegedly been carried out by a number of banks across the country, occurs when debit card purchases, checks, bill payments and ATM withdrawals are cleared starting with the largest transaction first, instead of chronologically. For instance, assume a consumer has 75 in their checking account and makes three purchases in the following order: 25; 25; 25; and 75. If the bank clears the latter and most expensive purchase first, the consumer would incur three overdraft fees; however, if the transactions were processed in the order in which they were made, the consumer would only be charged one overdraft fee. In this case, if each overdraft charge totals 35, the consumer would be charged 105 instead of a single fee of 35.
Several major banks have already agreed to multi-million dollar settlements in lawsuits claiming that they reordered their customers' transactions and thereby unfairly increased the number of overdraft fees charged to the consumer. Cathay Bank has not been named in the lawsuits making these allegations; however, if you suspect you were wrongfully charged overdraft fees by Cathay Bank or any other local banking institution, visit ClassAction.org for more information and a free case review. The attorneys working with the site are continuing their investigation into the overdraft protection policies of state and regional banks nationwide.
