As I've gotten older and... "more successful", I have been able to see this divide myself, experience it on my own. The "bounced check charge" (NSF charge) almost
exclusively hits poor people than it does people with money. Because when I was poor and walking miles to work at 0500 in the winter, and I bounced a check (which did happen more than rarely), the NSF fee was charged and the bank would
never gift me with any forgiveness, even though I did call and try to explain the situation every time. It was never an intentional bounce, but when you're scraping by, it's very,
very easy to bounce a check on accident. This was in the 90s and early 2000s before checks cleared immediately. But as I got older, and started programming for a living, and my social mobility kicked in and I crossed the divide... I
never,
ever,
ever have the NSF fee stick for overdrafts.
Never. It almost never happens now because it's typical for banks to tie a backup to your checking account for overdrafts (e.g. savings) so it's been a while since this has happened to me. But when it did, I'd call the bank, explain that it was a mistake on my part, and the banker would look up my account and immediately take it off
and then apologize to me. Life is
totally different on this side of the river. It is astonishing.
Incidentally, some time ago, I used Bank of America. I had about $300 in my checking account. I made about $300 in purchases for the month, like groceries and gas and this kind of thing. Then, something happened with the car, and I had to take it in to the shop. They could fix it for $250. I knew I didn't have it, but I decided I was willing to pay the overdraft fee (of $35) in order to get my car fixed, since... I needed a working car. Anyway, I made the charge on my card. Then, the next day, when all those charges posted, Bank of America rearranged the order of my posts so that the $250 charge went on the account first, and then charged me about ten $35 overdraft fees. They rearranged the post order so the largest transactions went first. Anyway, scumbag banks aside, they were actually sued for this in a class action, but through some "miracle" for the bank (a shredder), they "lost" all of their records for that year, including my $350 in overdraft fees that they charged me. So I wasn't able to get my money back even years later. Class actions are total ripoffs.