Balancing your checkbook is tough, but banks are making it even more difficult. Overdraft fees can amount to hundreds of dollars and keep your bank account in the red, even though your charges are small. Here's how it works.

When you write a check or swipe your debit card, your bank receives a request to transfer funds. The bank must then clear the request and transfer the funds. While it may seem like everything happens instantly, it doesn't. Banks wait to clear funds to maximize the number of overdraft charges they can bill you for instead of clearing them in the order they are received. In fact, many banks re-order your purchases from largest to smallest to maximize the amount of overdraft fees you may be charged.

Let's say it's Friday and you've shopped in a few places using your debit card for small purchases. There's enough money in your account so you're not worried. It's Monday now and you write a big check you're worried may not clear. You check your statement for the one overdraft fee you think the big check might have created but instead find several. The first fee is for the big check you wrote and the rest of the fees are from your Friday shopping, because the bank has re-ordered the charges from largest to smallest, placing your account into overdraft for all of the charges, rather than just the largest one.

Some banks are also improperly charging overdraft fees on customers with positive balances, and some violate their own stated policies and procedures by improperly charging sustained overdraft fees.

Overdraft fees are a substantial source of revenue for banks. In 2009, banks are expected to bring in between $27 billion and $38.5 billion in revenue from overdraft fees.

Higer Lichter & Givner and Trief & Olk has brought class actions in state and federal court to address this conduct. To find out more about the lawsuit, please contact Higer Lichter & Givner at (305) 356-7549 immediately.