Citizens Bank RBS Citizens Bank This Bank steals your money Manchester New Hampshire

If you say you did the same thing with your other bank and were never charged a fee...you got very..very lucky and the odds are almost certain that it will eventually happen.

Now, the reason for this is because YOU are not managing your account correctly.   You are obviously not keeping a written register.  Instead you seem to be relying on the bank to tell you how much money you have.  The problem with this is that on-line/ATM/Phone banking was NEVER meant as a replacement for your written register.  As much as this may be a shock to you, the bank is not a fortune teller and doesn't know what you have spent until they receive the transaction from the merchant.  Once they receive it they again don't just hold it because some crystal ball said that if they do you will overdraft and they can make money on fees.

Had you kept a written register you would have known exactly how much you had available.  Now, you are probably saying "Well a register is too much work".  Really?  Is spending a few seconds each time you do a transaction worse than ending up $286 in the hole?  If so..then I guess I can't help you.

But if you actually want to avoid this in the future here is what to do.  First get a register, you can find them on-line and I would bet that if you even went into the branch they would be more than willing to give you one.  They may even spend the time to explain how to use one.  But the usage is really simple.  When you make a transaction you write it down and subtract that from your available balance.  When you have a deposit, you add that to your available balance AFTER it becomes available. For this you can look on-line to see if your funds are available.  Then the big key factor..NEVER spend more than you show you have available.  If you do this the chances of you ever overdrafting is just about zero.

Oh and yes..even your old bank would tell you the exact same thing.

Apparently you're new to ROR and haven't yet learned to balance a checkbook. If you keep an accurate register it doesn't matter what order they post things.