Automatic Overdraft Protection Crackdown

I was wondering if all banks automatically enrolled their customers into some sort of overdraft protection program, because I recently signed up for a new checking account with a very large bank, and they automatically enrolled me in one, and even gave me an automatic credit card that would act as the covering agent for the overdraft should I happen to overdraft what I had in my account with checks I wrote or with debit card charge I made that exceeded the actual amount of money I had in my account.

While most people would consider that a good thing, some consumer groups think it’s unfair to automatically enroll customers in these programs without giving them the option or making them do the decision, because most of them charge fees when this “protection” is used. I honestly am sort of glad that I’m enrolled in one now though, because for me, it makes more sense to pay the fee to the bank if I overdraft, instead of paying the fees to the bank AND the fees to the institutions I wrote checks to that may have bounced, which could definitely add up to more than what I paid in fees to the bank to temporarily cover the funds discrepancy.

However, do I think that all customers should automatically be signed up without having the choice being presented? No. Because some people may genuinely not want or need this type of protection, and they should have the option to say no to it if they don’t want the burden of being enrolled in a program.

For me, for instance, I had to make sure the credit card was activated, and it’s just one more credit card for me to keep track of, so it is kind of a pain if you look at it that way. I’m not sure if all banks work this way with overdraft protection, but they should give an option when you don’t have to actually have a credit card to cover the funds that you should happen to overdraft, it’s too confusing for the customer sometimes.