Bounced! Critics Call Overdraft Fees 'the Mother Lode' of Bank Penalties

As a former vice president at Bank of America in Dallas, he says he implemented sophisticated computer programs to maximize bank revenue.

A new national survey of 2,000 U.S. banks, conducted by Moebs Services -- an economic research firm that gathers data for the banking industry and U.S. government -- shows banks' overdraft fees are climbing, hurting consumers.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)

"Well, the last one that I worked on, the cost of the project was in the hundreds of millions of dollars and represented over a million hours of just programming alone," Drew said. "They do know what they're doing. They're very sophisticated at it. And they have the resources and the manpower to get it done."

Bank of America said it had "no comment" regarding Drew's allegations.

Banking Industry Defends Practice

Texas real estate agent Jory Walker, 25, discovered one of the new computer tactics that many banks now use. Called "transaction sorting," it means banks can clear charges in any order they choose.

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"I definitely thought they were taking advantage of the situation," Walker said.

In his case, a single $100 overdraft led to multiple fees because, he says, a bank computer program cleared an $850 check ahead of several smaller charges that had occurred earlier. In short, the bank took things out of sequence.

"When I questioned them on that over the phone they said they had the right to clear whatever they choose to at whatever time in whatever order," he said. "So instead of over-drafting once, it turned out that we overdrafted almost six times. That resulted in almost $30 per hit, for items as small as a $1.50 purchase."

This resulted in about $200 in fees. The banking industry defends transaction sorting -- now standard practice at many banks -- as reflecting the preferences of most consumers.

"What people really want is you to call them up in the evening, ask them, 'Which transactions would you like to pay?' But that's not practical," Feddis said. "So some banks will pay the high-dollar transactions first on the basis that those are the most important transactions, like a mortgage or a rent."