Forum Post: Libertarian Fees

If I schedule my bills to be issued from my BOA account on the 3rd of the month when my SS is deposited, it takes 5 to 7 days for the checks to go out. The money is debited from my account on the day the bank issues the check - not when it's cashed by the recipient, as it would be if I wrote and mailed it. That little bit they profit by having my money in limbo is about enough to cover the postage I save. I don't have or spend a lot and don't have an interest earning account anyway. It may mean a lot more in the aggregate of all [big] bank customers. But I'm used to it.

They say with each bill pay entry, "may be debited and issued on or before ..."

This month I thought I would speed thing up a little by scheduling the bills 3 days before my direct deposit - counting on the 5 day minimum lead time. Then I remembered the great libertarian, Milton Friedman, who said something to the effect that banks [and all businesses] should charge fees for everything and the profits are positive economic growth. He is also the one who said, "There's no such thing as free lunch." He was talking to most of us not the Wall St. investors, especially the Quants. Most executives and bankers have gleefully agreed to maximizing fees. They say they're contributing to growth of the GDP.

And that's not all. Many banks have started programming their accounting software to rearrange transactions in time in order to maximize fees. Needless to say I abandoned the idea of getting my checks out a little early. Maybe there's a class action suit in that but I'm not brave enough to test it. It wouldn't take many $25 or more insufficient fund penalties to create hardship for me.