BOK Financial Excessive Bank Overdraft Fees

OK Financial (BOKF) and other financial institutions face allegations that they use deceptive practices in charging customers overdraft fees. Overdraft fees lawsuits filed against BOK Financial allege the company reordered financial transactions to maximize profits from overdraft fees.

BOK Financial, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a top-25 US-based bank with more than $30 billion in assets.

According to a Dec. 2016 consumer protection report published by the US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), overdraft and non-sufficient fund (NSF) revenue per bank account is on the rise.

Bank customers of BOK Financial have alleged in lawsuits that BOK intentionally reordered financial transactions from highest to lowest dollar value in order to push customers into overdraft situations that rack up more overdraft fees than if the transactions were posted in the order they occurred. The lawsuits allege that this "re-ordering" practice was implemented to maximize the revenue received from overdraft fees and caused customers to pay excessive amounts in overdraft fees.

For example, high-to-low order could go something like this: If a customer has $100 in an account and makes three transactions, two for $25 and one for $120, in that order, re-sequencing from high-to-low would place the $120 transaction first, draining the account so that rather than charging one overdraft fee for the $120 transaction, the bank could charge three overdraft fees.

According to the US PIRG report, the average bank collected $17.76 in overdraft/NSF fee revenue per consumer deposit account in the first three quarters of 2016, an increase of 2.6 percent over the same period in 2015. Many banks with the highest overdraft revenue "rely heavily" on overdraft revenue.
  In Oct. 2016, an Oklahoma District Court judge granted preliminary approval of a $7.8 million settlement on a class action filed in 2015 against BOKF Corey Ratzlaff et al v. BOKF NA dba Bank of Oklahoma et al, Case No. CJ-2015-00859, District Court, Tulsa County, State of Oklahoma. Plaintiffs in that lawsuit claimed that BOKF routinely processed debit transactions when the customer had insufficient funds and then charged an overdraft fee.

"Moreover, the bank employed automated software programs to reorder transactions so it could maximize the number of overdraft fees it imposed on its customers," according to the lawsuit petition. "In many instances, these overdraft fees cost account holders of the bank hundreds of dollars in a matter of days, or even hours."

In 2012, BOK Financial settled a class action lawsuit In Re: Checking Account Overdraft Litigation, Case No. 1:09-MD-02036, US District Court, Southern District of Florida for $19 million on three related lawsuits alleging that BOKF maximized its overdraft fee revenues by re-sequencing class members' debit card transactions in the period between Jan. 2005 and Aug. 2011.
 

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Last updated on Apr-3-20