What banks can do is pretty tightly regulated and I wonder if it would be legal for a bank to handle the overdraft situation in the aritcle the same way, with deducting a fee from checks cashed over time.
Banks have significant flexibility. Capital One 360 (the former ING Direct) handles overdrafts by providing a line of credit. The fees there for short term over drafts are a few cents.
I'm actually somewhat curious, why does CapitalOne fuck everyone in their "traditional banking" over, but generally not screw with [ex?] ING Direct customers?
We have very high standards and would immediately abandon CapitalOne in droves if they fucked with us.
For years whenever people complained about banks I always said "ING Direct isn't like that". So far CapitalOne hasn't wronged us yet. I suspect it's because they just bought out the business and the same ING Direct people are still running it, and the CapitalOne people know to leave well enough alone.
