Chase gives you until end of business day before charging NSF fee

Introduction

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get my shit together and get even more organized.  I feel I’m so behind on things and have let things slip by accident.  One of those things was that I had forgotten my Discover autopay goes to my Chase bank account and was surprised with a negative balance in my Chase checking account.

Chase Alerts

Before I continue on with my story, let me say that I signed up for those stupid text alerts that no one signs up for, but luckily I did sign up for it a long time ago.  One of those text alerts happens when my checking account goes below $5K.  When you’re in this game, making 5 digit payments to credit cards isn’t abnormal, so when it dips below $5K, I try to consolidate money back into my Chase account.

The text you never want to receive

I woke up one morning to a text message from Chase that said my current balance was $3,300.  No biggie.  Then the very next day, I got a new message that said my balance was -$6,000 due to a Discover autopay.  HOLY MOLY!  Panic time!  My FBA money was being sent to a local CU account and that’s why I didn’t have the money in my Chase account.

I then wrote myself a check for $10K from my CU and drove to a Chase branch and made the deposit.  I then asked the teller, “Will I be charged a NSF fee although I’m making a check deposit now?”  She went to grab a head teller who came back and told me: “No, with Chase, we do all sweeps at the end of the day.  We’ll process credits before debits and then charge you NSF at that time.”

I then asked if my check deposit (vs a cash deposit) mattered since most banks will only make available something like $200 while holding the other $9,800 for a few days.  He said it didn’t matter because Chase will “ask” the other bank at the end of the day if I have the funds, and if so, will credit me then.  What this means is although my current AVAILABLE balance was paltry, my actual balance was now +$4,000.  Meaning I can’t deposit that $10K check and withdraw $8K in cash, but Chase gives me credit for the full $10K regardless.

I waited a few days and sure enough, I was never charged an NSF fee.

Not all banks do this

A couple of weeks later, I had forgotten about another autopay from that same local CU account and processed a payment to AMEX.  Mint then alerted me days later I was hit with an NSF fee although I had made a check deposit ON THAT SAME DAY at the ATM.  I called up the CU and asked them why I was hit with the NSF fee although I deposited money that day.  The lady told me, “Well the debit happened at 8am and you didn’t have funds at the time, so that’s why you got hit with NSF.”  I asked if it was because I made the check deposit at an ATM vs a branch; she said it didn’t matter because they charge the NSF in “real-time” vs Chase’s end of day sweep.  I then asked for a one-time waiver since I wasn’t aware of this and she obliged.

Conclusion

Moral of story – clearly, try to never overdraft your account.  But for me, I moved my FBA deposits to go into Chase instead of that CU so that I have more float.  I’m also going to let Chase be my primary autodraft bank just so I have this ‘insurance’ in case I do overdraft.  I’m going to remove that local CU from any of my autodrafts and just write myself checks to Chase when I need money.  I also now need to call AMEX to see if they’ll waive that returned check fee.  I’m beginning to run out of ‘one-time courtesy credits.’