Unsuspecting New Yorkers pay bigger fines for depositing bad checks than the people who bounced them, according to a survey released yesterday.
The fees for people who unwittingly cash a bad check can run as high as $30, griped U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens, Brooklyn), whose office conducted the survey.
“You don’t get the money you were counting on, and the bank piles on a high fee, even though it’s not your fault,” an outraged Weiner said.
Weiner called the bank fees doubly “unfair” because there is no way to avoid them, since a person doesn’t know a check is bad until after he or she cashes it.
Weiner’s office conducted a survey of 76 area banks after the congressman himself cashed a bad check and was hit with a fee.
Weiner recently introduced a Fairness for Check Cashers Act that would stop banks from charging such fees.
The bill will be voted on in the next two weeks, Weiner said.
Weiner said he doesn’t mind banks charging a nominal fee, but insisted that many local banks overcharge.
Banks spend only between 48 cents and 65 cents when processing a bad check, he said – but New Yorkers are charged an average fee of $13.94. That’s more than twice the national average of $6.88.
The survey found that 97 percent of area banks charge the fees, and six banks charge the recipients of bad checks more than they charge people who write them.
Those banks are Delta National Bank and Trust, Israel Discount Bank of New York, Arab Bank PLC, Ponce de Leon Federal S&L, Maspeth Federal Savings and Sound Federal Savings.
Only Victory State Bank and Banco Popular North America do not charge the fees, the survey said.
But Van Negris, a representative for Flushing Savings Bank, questioned Weiner’s research. “I wonder where the data comes from and whether it includes all the costs associated with this issue,” including mailing notifi- cations of the bounced check, he said.