I wish they had done this ages ago so I wouldn't have wasted thousands of dollars on them and 

i think it's great.  credit cards do it, why not checking accounts?

^A third party tried to collect a $27 payment using my BoA debit card.  Since I didn't have any money in my BoA account at the time, I thought the third party would just take the funds from my back-up source instead.  Nope!  So BoA hits me with a $35 overdraft fee.  By the time I found out about this, maybe a week later--and there are no BoAs in my area (I withdrew everything when I moved)--BoA had hit me with another $35 fee for not putting money into my account quick enough.  Then, when I didn't pay--because a $70 fee for a $27 overdraft that happened without me knowing is bullshit!--they sent me a letter threatening to take this up with a debt collection agency and blacklist me from starting services with any new financial institution for the next several years.  This was for the first and only time I've ever had an overdraft anywhere!  All that for so little.

Bank Of America is fucking sleazy as shit.  They'll rake you over the coals if they can.

The way that it is now is fine with me. I've been a customer of BofA for several years now and I've been very grateful for the overdraft policy as it has been. It is nothing new that if you overdraw on your checking account you will be charged a fee (years ago it was $25, now it is $35). It used to be that they would charge the fee and then return your bad check unpaid. Now that debit cards are the main method of paying for things, they've transferred this behavior to the use of those tools and have added the condition that the withdraw does get paid.

First of all, BofA encourages some customers to sign up for Points Awards programs so you earn miles or points when you use your debit card without your pin number - this encourages you to answer "credit" when asked "will that be credit or debit today?" at the checkout line. The financial institutions gain from this because then the merchant you are paying has to pay a transaction fee. The procedure for this also lends to a three to five day delay in the actual exchanging of funds from your account to the merchant's account because the actual paper receipt of the transaction must be made available to BofA before they release the funds from "pending" to "cleared" status. So because of this delay, BofA is not actually able to pay your merchant, but your merchant has put trust in you and given you your product or service. It's all a game of "good faith" and I applauded BofA for considering this and not short changing merchants when it turned out you actually couldn't cover your account funds.

Rightfully a penalty is fair if you decide to behave irresponsibly and overdraw your account.

I have actually taken advantage of the overdraft policy as it currently exists in dire emergencies.  There was a time when I suffered a work shortage and could not keep up with my utility bills. It was dead winter and very very cold. I was able to make some payment, but never the total amount required and at one point my account with the utility got so behind that they threatened to shut off my heat. So I wrote them a bad check. This is when I discovered that BofA would actually cover the check (not return it) and merely charge me the overdraft fee for the privilege (also, another "extended overdraft fee" four days later for not yet having paid it). All in all, it was a loan that BofA gave me for a $70 fee and I was very grateful for it because shortly after I did manage to acquire the funds and pay it. I have since then used the overdraft system to my advantage on two other occasions.

Of course, if I ever did overdraw for a mere $2 purchase, I'd be very upset. But I would not be upset with my bank - because it is not my bank's responsibility to make sure I'm smart enough to know when I don't have the money.

I don't feel these changes are necessary. I never found the policy unfair to begin with.

Makes sense to me. How can you have negative dollars? If you can't have negative dollars, why should your bank let you pretend (for a price) that you can?

I have a son in his early 20s, and this would be the absolute best thing that could ever happen to him. No more calls that begin with "I hate that stupid bank. ..."

I think it's a good idea. My sister is constantly overdrafting because she doesn't realize how much money she has spent and doesn't keep track of it right enough. I haven't overdrafted since I was like 16, but I could see it happening and being really angry about it haha.  Anyway, good move. It'll probably make a lot of people happy. It will probably make a lot of people angry who have gotten so many overdraft fees already.